A quick report from the Tennessee-North Carolina line. Our side of the mountain suffered a lot of damage (Tennessee side), flooding, tree falls, houses broken or destroyed. In Erwin, where the hospital was flooded and people had to be evacuated by helicopter, a plastics factory not too far away flooded, also. Social media reports that they were forbidden to evacuate by the owner (?)/manager (unclear at this point). The supervisors are reported to have evacuated, but left the employees. A few left, one in chest high water; the business is with a stone’s throw of the Nolichucky). She apparently managed to feel the railroad tracks and followed them to safety. The rest are probably dead. One family has reported two dead with certainty. Here is hoping that if this terrible news is true, one or more people will be charged with manslaughter or negligent homicide. Hopefully, any civil judgement will break the owners.
My understand is that the Nolichucky is like the New River, i.e. very old. The flood plain of the river, now used for large produce farms, is actually the original river valley, much diminished as we come further from the end of the the last glacial maximum. Anyone not up against the mountain on the east side is flooded, it seems, but local news is not exactly making an effort to report much.
At the confluence of the Doe and Watauga rivers, flood waters washed out businesses and did other damage. Half a mile down the Watauga toward Johnson City, after the small rapids and the widening river, flooding was minimal.
On the other side of the mountain, which has been better reported, it is a nasty mess. Many more bodies are likely to be found, according to anecdotal reports. I am a university department Chair. All of my people on both sides are okay, but some on the Asheville side have lost cars and outbuildings, and parents of some have lost everything. Many on both sides are without power and water.
On our side, bridges are gone, too. Before TVA, this area flooded with disastrous regularity. Some of the old TVA dams, which haven’t generated power in decades, help mitigate the flooding somewhat. Places where dams were not present (rejected, I hear?) have been flooded worse.
