More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.
That's enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys' stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep (more than 1 meter). It's enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools.
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More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.
FILE - Halle Brooks kayaks down a street flooded by Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)
FILE - A stop sign is barely visible in floodwaters of a parking lot after torrential rain from Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)
FILE - Teresa Elder walks through a flooded Sandy Cove Drive from Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)
FILE - Jonah Wark, right, kisses his wife Sara Martin outside their flood-damaged home on the Pigeon River in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 28, 2024, in Newport, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
FILE - Men walk down a street flooded by Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)
“That's an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. "I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.''
The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials.
Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, calculated the amount of rain, using precipitation measurements made in 2.5-mile-by-2.5 mile grids as measured by satellites and ground observations. He came up with 40 trillion gallons through Sunday for the eastern United States, with 20 trillion gallons of that hitting just Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida from Hurricane Helene.
Clark did the calculations independently and said the 40 trillion gallon figure (151 trillion liters) is about right and, if anything, conservative. Maue said maybe 1 to 2 trillion more gallons of rain had fallen, much if it in Virginia, since his calculations.
Clark, who spends much of his work on issues of shrinking western water supplies, said to put the amount of rain in perspective, it's more than twice the combined amount of water stored by two key Colorado River basin reservoirs: Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Several meteorologists said this was a combination of two, maybe three storm systems. Before Helene struck, rain had fallen heavily for days because a low pressure system had “cut off” from the jet stream — which moves weather systems along west to east — and stalled over the Southeast. That funneled plenty of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. And a storm that fell just short of named status parked along North Carolina's Atlantic coast, dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello.
Then add Helene, one of the largest storms in the last couple decades and one that held plenty of rain because it was young and moved fast before it hit the Appalachians, said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero.
“It was not just a perfect storm, but it was a combination of multiple storms that that led to the enormous amount of rain,” Maue said. “That collected at high elevation, we’re talking 3,000 to 6000 feet. And when you drop trillions of gallons on a mountain, that has to go down.”
The fact that these storms hit the mountains made everything worse, and not just because of runoff. The interaction between the mountains and the storm systems wrings more moisture out of the air, Clark, Maue and Corbosiero said.
North Carolina weather officials said their top measurement total was 31.33 inches in the tiny town of Busick. Mount Mitchell also got more than 2 feet of rainfall.
Before 2017's Hurricane Harvey, “I said to our colleagues, you know, I never thought in my career that we would measure rainfall in feet,” Clark said. “And after Harvey, Florence, the more isolated events in eastern Kentucky, portions of South Dakota. We’re seeing events year in and year out where we are measuring rainfall in feet.”
Storms are getting wetter as the climate change s, said Corbosiero and Dello. A basic law of physics says the air holds nearly 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit warmer (7% for every degree Celsius) and the world has warmed more than 2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
Corbosiero said meteorologists are vigorously debating how much of Helene is due to worsening climate change and how much is random.
In a quick analysis, not peer-reviewed but using a method published in a study about Hurricane Harvey's rainfall, three scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab determined that climate change caused 50% more rainfall during Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.
For Dello, the “fingerprints of climate change” were clear.
“We’ve seen tropical storm impacts in western North Carolina. But these storms are wetter and these storms are warmer. And there would have been a time when a tropical storm would have been heading toward North Carolina and would have caused some rain and some damage, but not apocalyptic destruction. ”
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FILE - Dustin Holmes, rear, his girlfriend Hailey Morgan, and her children Aria Skye Hall, 7, left, and Kyle Ross, 4, right, arrive to their flooded home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)
FILE - Halle Brooks kayaks down a street flooded by Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)
FILE - A stop sign is barely visible in floodwaters of a parking lot after torrential rain from Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)
FILE - Teresa Elder walks through a flooded Sandy Cove Drive from Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)
FILE - Jonah Wark, right, kisses his wife Sara Martin outside their flood-damaged home on the Pigeon River in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 28, 2024, in Newport, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
FILE - Men walk down a street flooded by Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)
Hurricane Helene is shifting the presidential candidates’ plans this week.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is cutting short a campaign visit to Las Vegas to return to Washington for briefings. Republican candidate Donald Trump is heading to Georgia to see the storm’s impact.
Hurricane Helene’s death toll is more than 100 people and rising, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.
In addition to being humanitarian crises, natural disasters can create political tests for elected officials, particularly in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign.
Presidents typically avoid racing toward disaster zones so they don’t interfere with recovery efforts. The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.”
President Joe Biden spoke about his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and plans to visit areas affected by the storm later this week.
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Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Former President Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, even as his supporters have called for cuts to federal agencies that warn of weather disasters and deliver relief to hard-hit communities.
As president, Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. And Project 2025, backed by Trump supporters, would restructure FEMA to limit aid to states and says that the National Weather Service, which provides crucial data on hurricanes and other storms, “should be broken up and downsized.”
Read more here.
President Biden criticized Trump for “lying” about federal contacts with Georgia officials during the response to Hurricane Helene. Trump falsely claimed during a Monday tour of the damage that Biden hadn’t been in touch with the state’s Republican governor. “He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying.”
“I don’t know why he does this,” Biden continued. “I don’t care about what he says about me, but I care what he what he communicates to people that are in need. He implies that we’re not doing everything possible. We are. We are.”
State election officials in North Carolina are gathering information about options available to voters in the counties hardest hit by Hurricane Helene and plan a press conference for Tuesday.
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said during an emergency board meeting on Monday that she will be providing more information, including details on how voters could declare “natural disaster” as their reason for not being able to provide a photo ID.
The board met Monday to approve a resolution granting counties flexibility for holding weekly meetings required under state law to review absentee ballots. These meetings are required to begin every Tuesday between now and Election Day, officials said. The resolution passed unanimously.
The White House on Monday pushed back against an assertion by Donald Trump that President Joe Biden has been unresponsive to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Trump earlier on Monday praised Kemp for doing a “very good job” but said he was “having a hard time getting the president on the phone.” Trump added both Biden and the federal government are “not being responsive”
White House Karine Jean-Pierre during her daily press briefing noted that Kemp himself told reporters that he spoke to Biden on Sunday and that the president asked him what Georgia needed.
The president’s homeland security adviser, Liz Sherwood-Randall, said that Biden made clear that he offered Kemp “anything” Georgia needed for its response to the storm and remains available to the governor.
“So, if the governor would like to speak to the president again, of course, the president will take his call,” Sherwood-Randall said.
Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.
Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for “campaigning and looking for money.” He also levied attacks against the federal government for being “non-responsive” to the disaster, claiming Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has been struggling to get President Joe Biden on the phone. This is despite the White House announcing that Biden spoke by phone on Sunday night with Kemp. And North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Kemp, meanwhile, expressed appreciation on Monday for federal response to the storm.
ATLANTA — Dexter Sharper, a Democratic state representative whose district includes most of Valdosta, didn’t journey downtown to see Trump Monday. He said he was sitting in his truck outside his powerless home, charging his cell phone while trying to coordinate ways to get hot meals to people who also lack electricity.
“To me, it’s a non-factor whether Donald Trump is here or if any of those people are here,” Sharper told the Associated Press by phone.
He praised both Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Rep. Austin Scott and Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff for visiting Valdosta, saying they helped bring needed aid.
“I’m helping ensure that there’s going to be a bipartisan effort to help Georgia get all the funds we need so we can get back to normal,” Sharper said. “it’s nonpolitical with us.”
ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, both Republicans, did not attack the federal response Monday morning at a news conference in hard-hit Augusta.
“Just know that we will work in a bipartisan way on disaster relief in this state with our federal, state and local partners,” said Kemp, who has often been the subject of attacks by Trump before the former president and Kemp recently patched things up.
The two-term governor said he spoke directly to Biden on Sunday evening and has “been playing phone tag” with Harris.
“The president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and called him right back and he just said ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we’ve got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process,” Kemp said. “He offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that. But we’ve had FEMA embedded with us since a day or two before the storm hit in our state operations center in Atlanta. We’ve got a great relationship with them.”
Kemp said the state has submitted a request for an expedited emergency declaration to get federal aid for governments and individuals. Normally, the federal government doesn’t start issuing aid until state and local governments have completed damage assessments. Kemp said FEMA acknowledged the request.
Allen, a five-term congressman who said a tree is “resting” on the roof of his home after the storm, also said storm relief would be bipartisan
“This is not a Democrat or Republican issue,” said Allen, who represents the Augusta area. “This is an American issue. This is a Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina issue.”
Trump says is he heading to Valdosta, Georgia, and bringing along “lots of relief material, including fuel, equipment, water, and other things” to help those struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Trump says in a post on his social media site that he will be joined by “Many politicians and Law Enforcement,” including evangelist Franklin Graham, whose organization, Samaritan’s Purse, has been helping with disaster relief, and Valdosta’s mayor.
He adds that he was going to stop into North Carolina, and has “lot of supplies ready for them,” but that he is postponing that part of his trip because “access and communication is now restricted” and so that local emergency management “is able to focus on helping the people most affected, and not being concerned with me.”
In typical Trump fashion, though, he also tried to exacerbate political fault lines, claiming, without evidence, that the federal government and the state’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” There is no evidence that is the case.
Asheville, one of the hardest-hit parts of the state, is solidly Democratic, as is the rest of Buncombe County.
Ahead of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the Trump campaign is lowering expectations that the former president’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance to have a decisive performance, telling reporters in a teleconference on Monday that Walz is a seasoned politician who is nimble on the debate stage.
“Tim Walz is very good in debates, really good. He’s been a politician for nearly 20 years. He’ll be very well prepared for tomorrow night,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump. He predicted the Democratic governor of Minnesota will be much more “buttoned up” than he is on the campaign trail and ready to defend his record, but said, “that’s not to say that JD Vance won’t be prepared tomorrow, or that somehow he isn’t up to the challenge.”
Miller was joined on the call by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who has been helping Vance prepare for the debate by playing Walz in debate prep sessions. Emmer said he has spent the last month reviewing all of Walz’s past debate performances, studying his mannerisms and policies, and declared that “JD Vance is prepared to wipe the floor with Tim Walz and expose him to the radical liberal he is.”
Harris says that when President Biden called and told her he was leaving the presidential race in July, it left her with some trouble sleeping.
“Everything was in speedy, speedy motion” and “I was not sleeping so well,” she said on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast.
She laughed and added, “I like to sleep.” She recalled that, the morning after that phone call, Harris said she wasn’t able to sleep. So she got up and started marinating a pot roast for her family.
“Everybody was asleep. I just got up and started cooking,” she recalled.
Vice President Kamala Harris says she’s been clear about her racial identity and background and doesn’t listen to questions about it raised by critics, including her presidential race opponent, Republican Donald Trump.
Asked about criticism about her identity on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast that was released Monday, Harris responded, “I don’t listen to it.”
“I’m really clear about who I am,” she said. “And if anybody else is not they have to go through their own level of therapy.”
Harris said she’s happy to discuss her identity more fully, but that really doing so would require an hours-long discussion about the role of race in America.
“My mother was very clear. She was raising two Black girls to be two proud Black women,” Harris said. “And it was never a question.”
Vice President Kamala Harris says of the infamous blind date where she met her husband, Doug Emhoff, “I just have a really bossy best friend.”
Set up by especially persuasive friends, Harris told an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast that was released Monday that Emhoff picked her up for the date in a BMW. He immediately divulged, “I’m a really bad driver,” she recalled.
“I guess he was trying to create a little expectation,” Harris said.
She said the pair then went to Emhoff’s favorite restaurant where people who worked there “were like, ‘Hey Doug.’” She didn’t name the restaurant.
At the beginning of a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, Harris said “we will stand with these communities for as long as it takes to make sure that they are able to recover and rebuild.”
Trump, speaking in Erie, Pa., on Sunday, described the storm as “a big monster hurricane” that had “hit a lot harder than anyone even thought possible.”
He criticized Harris for attending weekend fundraising events in California while the storm hit.
“She ought to be down in the area where she should be,” Trump said.
The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.” She also spoke with Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and she received a briefing from Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell while she was traveling.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump walks outside the Chez What furniture store as he visits Valdosta, Ga., a town impacted by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks outside the Chez What furniture store as he visits Valdosta, Ga., a town impacted by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump walks outside the Chez What furniture store as he visits Valdosta, Ga., a town impacted by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris walks to board Air Force Two in Las Vegas, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, en route to Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two in Las Vegas, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, en route to Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
