Hurricane/tropical storm Helene just tore up the Southern Appalachians. This is my home turf for nature explorations and identifications, so it’s painful to see the destruction it left in its wake. We have a lot of clean-up ahead of us but right now the focus is still on rescuing people who are stuck without food, water and no way to get anywhere. I got lucky - my house is fine (just had some water to mop up in the basement) and everything is working here.
I was wondering about the impact of this on iNaturalist observations from the area so I did this comparison between observations made this weekend (2024) vs. the same weekend last year (2023).
This is the area I usually ID in. Chattanooga and Knoxville are still bright spots on the map, but Helene has pretty much wiped out the Blue Ridge Parkway corridor from Asheville to Boone.
Infrastructure is gone, roads and bridges destroyed, whole towns obliterated by floods (search for Chimney Rock and Lake Lure if you want to see pictures). Asheville is still only accessible by air, all major roads leading to the city are gone, no power, water or cell service. Boone (where I work) was hit hard as well. A lot of people in town still have no utilities either.
It will be a good long while before I can make it out to my favorite places again. I’m sure this event will leave a gap in the observation records for this area. The Southern Appalachians are a hotspot for biodiversity. I wonder how nature will bounce back from this.
