Sounds like some BI incoming
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Maybe. The mine itself might have BI cover. Probably few chip makers have contingent BI. Hopefully we don’t find out.
Current power outage map by county:
it also has a slider where you can see outages from this storm at prior points in time.
Very few homeowners in western NC purchased flood insurance. Buncombe county, which includes Asheville, was particularly hard hit and only had 0.7% of residents purchasing flood insurance. (941 flood policies for 137K housing units.)
I can’t tell if that number is good or bad. We are talking about rivers that crested 20-25 feet above flood levels…and if you are in a mountainous area, that could be half a city block.
I am sure there are places that never expected to flood. Near my house, there is a creek, and I have never seen it more than halfway to the banks, and we have had rain events of ~6" in 12 hours, but maybe never much more than that. I would imagine a double digit rain event could push it up across the road and high enough to get to some houses, but right now I expect none of them would have flood insurance.
Per First Street, about 18% of properties in Buncombe county were deemed at risk of flooding over the next 30 years according to their modeling. I don’t know whether this storm exceeded their modeled events.
You used to be able to look up one property for free with them. You might drop in your address to see what they say. I did a while back even though I felt certain I was not at risk. It did flag my friend’s house that is not in the NFIP flood plain.
Asheville has been a participating community in the NFIP for a long time. There were known hazards for severe flood in the area, although this storm did of course blow past all historical events there.
The 18% feels like a big number…here are some pictures to get a sense of the flooding, and while it is certainly bad and includes lots of uninsured properties, it also shows most of these are adjacent to the rivers where they were most likely to be insured.
Note: I had a friend growing up that lost his home in the floods of 93…so that’s a little bit more what I think about where large flood plains have been populated and a levee breaks wiping out entire towns.
Much of the towns in Western NC are built in river valleys. It’s pretty mountainous.
And folks not right up on a river still have to worry about what is uphill from them in terms of landslides.
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Sure…I suppose part of the story is that a larger town like Asheville is more spread out and away from the rivers, but many small ones are basically just the river valley.
Dammit Tampa, why’d you have to take that stapler?
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Even if Milton is “only” Cat 3 at landfall, the current track is concerning with it potentially hitting just north of Tampa. Tampa is very susceptible to storm surge if either the center or dirty side of the storm rolls up Tampa Bay. Hopefully it wobbles off that track.
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How did we jump from Helene to Milton in a couple weeks?
Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie all formed but were no threat to land here. Kirk and Leslie are still out there.
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I thought I heard somewhere that the gulf was getting so warm back in August that it was supressing storm formation…wonder if that was verified or if whoever said that just got lucky? It does seem like we had a July and early fall season rather than the usual around labor day.
It will make planning gulf coast trips a lot more challenging. Last time there was in June and there was a TS that screwed up the beach currents for half the week. Actually, no point in even considering it if its just going to be miserably hot.
I don’t think that phrasing is likely correct. Warm water is the fuel.
I think we were getting the benefit of wind shear for a while in the gulf and Atlantic, which does suppress growth of tropical systems by essentially ripping the top off of them.
“The reason behind this surprising lull is that an unusually warm layer of air in the upper atmosphere has increased stability, making it harder for storms to form. The West African monsoon, typically a prolific generator of tropical waves, has shifted northward, often steering potential storms into less favorable environments. Meanwhile, Saharan dust, more prevalent than anticipated, has been working overtime to suppress storm development.”
That’s one take at least, but yeah, my earlier comment wasn’t terribly accurate.
My son is getting his fill of rain during his two weeks in Tampa. Will still be there if Milton hits it.