Former governor: The story behind how North Carolina gets ready for disasters like Helene
North Carolina is reeling from its worst natural disaster since 1900. While forecasts were increasingly urgent as Helene raced northward, for North Carolina's resourceful mountainfolk it proved far more destructive than anyone dared imagine.
For a back story. I vividly remember my early introduction to emergency preparations as governor from 1985 through 1992. I still find it inspiring that thousands of state workers and volunteers from here and across America come dig us out, repair roads and utilities, and restore power, communications and commerce, as we do for them.
Effective response to a natural disaster is more complex than anyone could fully anticipate. Fortunately for us, North Carolina puts major emphasis on preparation. Early in my first year, I attended a special NC innovation: practicing for storms, forest fires and tornadoes.
The scene was a high school gym, with tables set up for coordinators of each type of responder in the region. There was a separate table for highway patrol, national guard, prison sheriffs, Red Cross, Salvation Army, ham radio operators (cellphones weren't invented!), school superintendents, clergy, electric utilities, NC Forest Service and many more. One table hosted NC's own home improvement retailer Lowe's, side-by-side with Home Depot, Ace Hardware and other competitors. They practiced as a team estimating special tools, like generators and chain saws, each would deliver.
They worked through a realistic rehearsal for a forest fire, for that season would soon begin. Similar maneuvers would rehearse appropriate steps months later to prepare for hurricane season. Each table would practice exactly what their duties would be and when and where to deploy, responding to various scenarios. They also would understand the tasks to be handled by every other table, all orchestrated in advance. Tactics might be improvised as real disasters unfolded, but the strategic assignment of responsibilities was settled.
During my eight-year watch, there were two major fires, three monster tornadoes, 13 hurricanes — and one freak red tide at Beaufort Inlet. My rookie year, there were 12 Atlantic hurricanes, and North Carolina caught eight of them. The next seven years, we had only five of 35. We believed practice sessions helped speed our response to a storm.
Hugo in 1989 was the worst hurricane for my administration. It went through North Carolina east of the mountains with heavy rainfall and 60 mph gale-force winds, occasionally gusting to 100. Hugo blew down trees and flooded low-lying spots — but showed little to guide our response to Helene.
Eastern North Carolina took a horrible loss from the vast flooding of coastal plains by Floyd in 1999. Across relatively flat terrain, many homes were flooded to the ceiling or higher. With little lateral flow, it took days for the high water to recede. Helene was more comparable to the infamous 1889 Johnstown Pennsylvania flood. An upstream dam collapsed, sending a torrent of water 30 feet deep crashing through the unsuspecting town at up to 40 mph. Caught entirely off guard, 2,209 lives were lost.
Few understood "flooding" would mean river tsunamis, sweeping everything downstream. Few expected that one or two feet of rain over 2-3 days on mountains would create cascading torrents of water scouring the flood plains where thousands of homesteads had stood for decades.
Looking ahead, some observers have considered Helene's likely disruption of the general election. While Asheville and Boone vote Democratic, the other 21 counties west of Hickory vote heavily Republican, normally with a net 120,000-vote advantage for Republicans. This far exceeds Trump's 74,483 margin carrying the state in 2020. While every effort will be made to assure the polls are ready for them, we cannot imagine the daily burdens they face just meeting their families' vital needs. These are hardy citizens, famous for their enduring spirit. I'm confident they will do what they can.
Jim Martin, a Republican, was N.C. governor from 1985-93. He is a regular contributor to our pages.
