Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Yancey County/Pensacola 0:00-8:15
Watauga County/Vanderpool 8:15-11:50
Buncombe County/Swannanoa and Fairview 11:50-36:00, with drawing
Helene likely produced thousands of landslides in the North Carolina Mountains, including a large number of dangerous debris flows. Often called mudslides, these fast-moving landslides carry huge boulders and trees and flow at high speed down mountainsides. Unfortunately, many lives (perhaps 20 or more) were lost due to debris flows during the storm. This video shows where debris flows happened and the paths they took down the mountainsides. Because debris flows are a process associated with extreme rainfall, they aren't a threat all the time. They also need certain landscape conditions to form and travel, so not everywhere is at risk during heavy rain. Understanding how these landslides form and travel is a big part of reducing bad outcomes in future storms. Debris flows can form with much less rain than Helene brought, so we'll likely see many of them down the road before another Helene-scale storm.
Yancey County/Pensacola 0:00-8:15
Watauga County/Vanderpool 8:15-11:50
Buncombe County/Swannanoa and Fairview 11:50-36:00, with drawing
Helene likely produced thousands of landslides in the North Carolina Mountains, including a large number of dangerous debris flows. Often called mudslides, these fast-moving landslides carry huge boulders and trees and flow at high speed down mountainsides. Unfortunately, many lives (perhaps 20 or more) were lost due to debris flows during the storm. This video shows where debris flows happened and the paths they took down the mountainsides. Because debris flows are a process associated with extreme rainfall, they aren't a threat all the time. They also need certain landscape conditions to form and travel, so not everywhere is at risk during heavy rain. Understanding how these landslides form and travel is a big part of reducing bad outcomes in future storms. Debris flows can form with much less rain than Helene brought, so we'll likely see many of them down the road before another Helene-scale storm.
