Helene’s cost could be 600 lives, $160B in damages

AccuWeather recorded more than 30 inches of rain in two locations and estimated damage between $145 billion to $160 billion, up from weekend estimates by others of $95 billion to $110 billion.

Six hundred people are unaccounted for, and one of North Carolina’s hardest-hit counties by the remnants of Hurricane Helene on Monday said at least 35 have died.

Six states total at least 121 fatalities, many places in the Blue Ridge Mountains have yet to be checked because of failed infrastructure, and critical aid is being rushed to survivors of historic flooding. Buncombe County, where Asheville is county seat, had withheld a fatality number pending notification of kin, a protocol made more troublesome by lack of power, internet and cellphones in many big pockets throughout the region.

Twenty-five years to the month after people in the mountains of the state and elsewhere sent resources to eastern North Carolina for the 500-year flood caused by Hurricane Floyd, convoys of bottled water, cleaning supplies and necessities were heading west. AccuWeather recorded more than 30 inches of rain in two locations and estimated damage between $145 billion to $160 billion, up from weekend estimates by others of $95 billion to $110 billion.

South Carolina and Georgia each lost 25 lives, and Florida 11, according to published reports.

Asheville has been like many other locales along North Carolina’s stretch of the Appalachian Mountains – only reachable by air. At 4 p.m. Eastern on Monday, DriveNC.org reported 432 total road closures due to Helene – nine interstates, 25 federal highways, 42 state highways, and 356 secondary roads.

More than 150 have been cleared since the storm began, U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., said in a release. He also shared that his district – the southern-most part of the mountain range bordering Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina – should have most of its service from Duke Energy operable by Friday.

More than 600 National Guardsmen have been deployed to western North Carolina, their mission bolstered by high-water vehicles, palletized load systems and forestry support teams for debris clearance. They were expected Monday.

AccuWeather said rainfall totals were 32.51 inches in Jeter Mountain, 31.36 inches in Busick, and 26.65 inches in Hughes. From Asheville, Jeter Mountain is about 40 miles due south not far from South Carolina, Busick is about 40 miles northeast just off the Pisgah National Forest, Hughes about 70 miles northeast near Sugar Mountain.

Gov. Roy Cooper said he expects, as crews reach more areas that are yet to be accessed, the fatalities total will rise. White House Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall said Monday, “It looks like there could be as many as 600 lost lives. We know there are 600 who are either lost or unaccounted for.”

President Joe Biden, before departing Dover Air Force Base aboard Air Force One, on Monday said, “It really is amazing. You saw the photographs. It’s stunning.”

The 81-year-old, besieged from the public by health questions halting his attempt for reelection on July 21, said he would visit the North Carolina areas when safe and not an intrusion on recovery and relief efforts.

Vice President Kamala Harris, No. 2 in charge of his incumbent administration, changed her campaign plans so she could visit the Southeast this week, newswire Reuters said.

The images Biden referred to have blitzed the internet many in the region can’t access. Some structures floated off foundations and went down roads in whole; others were torn apart by the downhill rapids, splintered and spread as if dropped by a tornado. In published reports, residents were aghast at the magnitude and offered “never seen anything like it” over and over.

They would have had to remember July 1916, when six straight days of rain started July 5. It was associated with a hurricane coming out of the Gulf of Mexico that weaved from the Mississippi-Alabama line to eastern Tennessee, and a second one that made landfall in Charleston, S.C., on July 14.

Asheville, at 94,589 easily the largest city in the state west of Winston-Salem near the Virginia border and Charlotte toward South Carolina, has a city water system damaged and has been cordoned by a mudslide blocking Interstate 40. Going west, I-40 is closed because two eastbound lanes fell into the Pigeon River along a mountainside about 4 miles from Tennessee.

Alan Wooten

Managing Editor

Related Topics:AlanWooten CenterSquare HurricaneHelene

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Conservatives say Federal Government cancelled ‘prescribed burn’ which may have saved Jasper

Published on September 26, 2024

Todayville

Photo from Parks Canada – Jasper Fire, Cabin Creek

From the Facebook page of Conservative MP Dan Mazier

BOMBSHELL EVIDENCE

Emails obtained from Minister Guilbeault’s department reveals discussions to “cancel planned prescribed burns in Western Canada”, months before the devastating wildfire in Jasper.

The Liberal Government was warned since 2017 that a catastrophic fire in Jasper was not a matter of if, but when.

Liberals denied the advice of forest management experts and allowed a tinder box to persist around the Jasper.

From Red Deer MP Blaine Calkins

Trudeau’s Radical Environment Minister confirms he was briefed on the serious likelihood of a catastrophic fire in Jasper. But he cannot confirm what direction he gave to immediately clear the deadwood tinder box around Jasper. Experts warned. Liberals ignored.

Photo from Parks Canada – Jasper Fire, Geike Street

News release from the Conservative Party

Photo from Parks Canada – Jasper Fire, Geike Street Looking To Patricia Street

Over the past few years, consecutive Liberal Environment Ministers refused to listen to experts when they warned repeatedly that Jasper National Park was at “serious risk of a catastrophic fire.” But they took no action, and now one-third of Jasper has been destroyed, a firefighter lost their life, while peoples’ livelihoods have been destroyed.

This was made clear in a House of Commons’ Committee yesterday when Trudeau’s radical Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, said “there was no stopping this fire.” But this is nothing more than a lie. The Liberal Government has been warned for years that Jasper National Park was at risk. In 2016, Conservatives first raised the alarm that pine beetles and poor forestry management had made Jasper vulnerable to wildfires, but the Liberals ignored our warnings.

Photo from Parks Canada – Jasper fire, Maligne Lodge

Following that, two scientists in 2017-2018, tried to warn the Liberal Government about the growing threat of a wildfire. They wrote to then-Liberal Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, saying that a century of fire suppression, combined with a warming climate and the mountain pine beetle epidemic, made the likelihood of a major fire “a matter of when, not if.” But all along they were met with condescension and denialism. On top of this, local residents even launched a pressure campaign, calling on Jasper National Park to begin taking actions to mitigate the wildfire risk, but consecutive Liberal ministers did nothing.

Now, Canadians have discovered that Parks Canada prioritized political optics over prescribed burns. In an email, a senior Parks Canada director wrote “at what point do we make the organizational decision to cancel prescribed burns in Western Canada? … Public and political perception may become more important than actual prescription windows.”

Photo from Parks Canada – Jasper fire, Turret Street looking to Miette Avenue

The catastrophic wildfire that occurred in Jasper National Park this summer has not alleviated the risk of another disaster. The threat to communities in Jasper National Park will persist unless the Liberal Government fundamentally changes its approach to forest management, but it’s clear Steven Guilbeault is in denial.

Alberta

Thank the beetle and deadwood ‘fuel’ that should have been cleared

Published on August 8, 2024

Todayville

By Josh Andrus

Originally posted in the Western Standard

Parks Canada officials admit they failed to conduct controlled burns of dead pine trees, which now pose a significant fire risk.

While Ottawa fixates on climate change rhetoric, their neglect of forest fire prevention has left Alberta’s landscapes vulnerable to devastation.

Last week, a shining beacon of the beauty of our province was partially destroyed as a wildfire burned through the picturesque town of Jasper. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.

Thankfully there has been no reported loss of life. But many people’s livelihoods have been wiped out. The question is how did this happen, and what could have been done to prevent it?

Smokey Bear’s famous saying was: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” And, in this case, proactive measures certainly could have made a difference.

Unfortunately, the entire federal government seems to have forgotten Smokey’s key point. Fire prevention on national park land is federal jurisdiction.

In 2022, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was informed that Parks Canada managers had not taken adequate precautions to protect the Town of Jasper from wildfires, according to documents obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter. At that time, Parks Canada officials admitted they had failed to conduct controlled burns of dead pine trees, which posed a significant fire risk.

“A mountain pine beetle infestation has brought significant changes to forests in Alberta, including Jasper National Park, with consequences for wildfire risk,” Guilbeault was informed.

Almost half of Jasper’s Whitebark Pine forest, 44%, was infected by beetles. However, few steps were taken to reduce the risk to the Town of Jasper with controlled burns of the surrounding forest, records show.

“Fire has not yet been applied for Whitebark Pine restoration,” stated a 2022 implementation report. “Mechanical thinning has been completed in 1.6 hectares, which is a small area relative to the amount of Whitebark Pine habitat.”

No reason was given for failing to take precautions. Since the fire, Guilbeault has made no public mention of the management reports.

Even though federal officials, including his department, knew the raging pine beetle was a serious hazard, Guilbeault blamed climate change: “As we are seeing in Canada and all around the world, we are seeing more and more aggressive forest fires,” he said on a media call on Monday.

Landon Shepherd, Incident Commander for Parks Canada, also attributed the intensity of the blazes to climate change: “This isn’t meant to be a discussion about climate change, but anyone who’s involved in fire management can tell you that things have become more difficult, especially in the last five years, to manage impacts.”

The 2022 warnings were not the first time concerns about a lack of fire prevention in national parks have been raised.

In 2018, CBC reported concerns from experts. Emile Begin and Ken Hodges, foresters for 40 years who had been studying Jasper National Park, found multiple issues with the forest that make it susceptible to a fire.

“You have fire suppression that has occurred for many years — therefore, you get a lot of dead fuel that would have been consumed by a natural process,” Hodges said. “The mountain pine beetle adds even more fuel to the situation.”

“You’ve got a major catastrophe on your hands if you get a match thrown into that.”

When pressed about the concerns, Alan Fehr, a superintendent for Jasper National Park, said: “We’re quite comfortable with where we are with our own emergency planning and evacuation planning.”

Hodges disagreed: “The potential that’s out there is actually scary. Hopefully, we’re wrong.”

Despite the repeated warnings of potential devastation due to forest management practices, Ottawa continues to point to climate change as the cause of the fires.

The Alberta government has been preparing, and increased its firefighting budget by more than 50% to $155.4 million this year. Alberta’s firefighting budget is now the highest it has ever been (despite misinformation about cuts.)

However, without proper fire prevention on national park land, blazes can become out of control quickly — as the warnings indicated.

Smokey Bear would be horrified. Clearly, Ottawa needs to spend less time interfering in provincial jurisdiction and more time focusing on things that actually are federal jurisdiction, like fire prevention in national parks.

Their inability to see the forest through the trees and take legitimate action to protect our national parks from the fury of an out-of-control wildfire demonstrates a degree of ineptitude that is, quite frankly, shocking.

Ottawa needs to stay in its lane and focus on its own jurisdiction, and they need to stop blaming climate change for their own ineptitude.