Area between Asheville and Avery County saw the most intense wind from Helene: NWS

GREENVILLE, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The rain, floods and mudslides may have received much of the attention from Hurricane Helene, but there were still powerful winds from the devastating storm across western North Carolina.

A large portion of the North Carolina mountains saw wind gusts of at least 70 mph from Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28, with a few pockets reaching triple-digits, the National Weather Service reported in its wind damage assessment released Wednesday.

A meteorologist with the Greenville-Spartanburg office said there was a very sharp increase in winds on the northeast side of Asheville, especially in higher elevations. Southeast-facing slopes across much of the mountains from northeast of Asheville to Avery County sustained the most extreme damage. The highest measured gust was 106 mph on Mount Mitchell – the highest point in the eastern U.S. A second pocket of extreme wind also occurred in the vicinity of Roan Mountain in Yancey County, mainly above 6,000 feet.

Closer to home, an area from Chester County, South Carolina, through south Charlotte and Gaston County to Caldwell and eastern Burke counties reported frequent gusts of 40-50 mph, with pockets of 70 mph.

There were two areas of the South Carolina Upstate that also saw 70-80 gusts. Officials said these wind gusts were persistent for multiple hours, compared to a thunderstorm where the most intense winds last for only a few minutes. A longer duration of high-end wind gusts combined with very saturated soils and full foliage on trees resulted in an incredible amount of trees downed. According to the Associated Press, more than 1.1 million customers were without power across the Carolinas and Georgia from the storm. NWS said the winds also changed direction as the center of circulation passed to the west, resulting in trees falling across each other and not necessarily in one direction.

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"We used to hate elephants a lot," Kenyan farmer Charity Mwangome says, pausing from her work under the shade of a baobab tree.The bees humming in the background are part of the reason why her hatred has dimmed.The diminutive 58-year-old said rapacious elephants would often destroy months of work in her farmland that sits between two parts of Kenya's world-renowned Tsavo National Park.Beloved by tourists - who contribute around 10 percent of Kenya's GDP - the animals are loathed by most local farmers, who form the backbone of the nation's economy.Elephant conservation has been a roaring success: numbers in Tsavo rose from around 6,000 in the mid-1990s to almost 15,000 elephants in 2021, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).But the human population also expanded, encroaching on grazing and migration routes for the herds.Resulting clashes are becoming the number one cause of elephant deaths, says KWS.Refused compensation when she lost her crops, Mwangome admits she was mad with the conservationists. But a long-running project by charity Save the Elephants offered her an unlikely solution - deterring some of nature's biggest animals with some of its smallest: African honeybees.Cheery yellow beehive fences now protect several local plots, including Mwangome's. A nine-year study published last month found that elephants avoided farms with the ferocious bees 86 percent of the time."The beehive fences came to our rescue," said Mwangome.- Hacking nature -The deep humming of 70,000 bees is enough to make many flee, including a six-tonne elephant, but Loise Kawira calmly removes a tray in her apiary to demonstrate the intricate combs of wax and honey.Kawira, who joined Save the Elephants in 2021 as their consultant beekeeper, trains and monitors farmers in the delicate art.The project supports 49 farmers, whose plots are surrounded by 15 connected hives. Each is strung on greased wire a few metres off the ground, which protects them from badgers and insects, but also means they shake when disturbed by a hungry elephant. "Once the elephants hear the sound of the bees and the smell, they run away," Kawira told AFP."It hacks the interaction between elephants and bees," added Ewan Brennan, local project coordinator. It has been effective, but recent droughts, exacerbated by climate change, have raised challenges."(In) the total heat, the dryness, bees have absconded," said Kawira.It is also expensive - about 150,000 Kenyan shillings ($1,100) to install hives - well beyond the means of subsistence farmers, though the project organisers say it is still cheaper than electric fences.- 'I was going to die' -Just moments after AFP arrived at Mwanajuma Kibula's farm, which abuts one of the Tsavo parks, her beehive fence had seen off an elephant.The five-tonne animal, its skin caked in red mud, rumbled into the area and then did an abrupt about-face. "I know my crops are protected," Kibula said with palpable relief.Kibula, 48, also harvests honey twice a year from her hives, making 450 shillings per jar - enough to pay school fees for her children.She is fortunate to have protection from the biggest land mammals on Earth."An elephant ripped off my roof, I had to hide under the bed because I knew I was going to die," said a less-fortunate neighbour, Hendrita Mwalada, 67.For those who can't afford bees, Save the Elephants offers other solutions, such as metal-sheet fences that clatter when shaken by approaching elephants, and diesel- or chilli-soaked rags that deter them. It is not always enough. "I have tried planting but every time the crops are ready, the elephants come and destroy the crops," Mwalada told AFP."That has been the story of my life, a life full of too much struggling."ra-rbu/er/kjm