Commentary

Hurricane Helene hits US coast, Appalachia and beyond

September 27, 2024

Peter Zeihan (Commentary Contributor)

Former President Donald Trump is facing criticism from the Charlotte Observer for politicizing Hurricane Helene's response in North Carolina. — Image credit: Reuters

All opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the contributors.

Hurricane Helene hit Florida and Georgia overnight between Sept. 26 and 27 as a Category 4 hurricane, and accompanying storms will continue reaching deeper into the continental United States today. Dangerous flash flooding from the hurricane, known as storm surge, was some of the worst flooding that the Tampa Bay area has ever seen, and the hurricane itself was one of the strongest to ever hit the Atlanta, Georgia, metro area. Helene is now projected to bring landslides and historic flooding into Appalachia as it moves into the U.S. interior.

Watch the video above as Straight Arrows News contributor Peter Zeihan shares his thoughts on the projected path of Hurricane Helene and what he says are the most dangerous elements of the storm for those of us living deeper inland.

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The following is an excerpt from Peter’s Sept. 27 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:

Hurricane Helene is heading toward the Big Bend of Florida and was set to make landfall around midnight last night. As a Category 3 storm, Helene is poised to make quite the splash, so here’s what to keep an eye on.

The leading right quadrant of a hurricane is the most dangerous. So, if you’re in that… hold on tight. You can expect high winds and storm surges, which could exceed 20 feet in this storm. Storm surges are where the most damage happens, due to severe flooding and the destruction of buildings. There are some other factors playing into the severity of these storms, like people and insurance. With more people moving to hurricane-prone areas and therefore being affected by these storms, insurance premiums have skyrocketed.

In addition, Helene is taking an unusual path, which is expected to amplify its impact. After it makes landfall, it will travel through Georgia and into the Appalachian region, where it will linger for a bit. This will cause more rain and flooding to hit these areas in particular.

And I have one final tip for those who refuse to listen to the weather man, but want to know how bad the hurricane is going to be. Just head on down to your local Waffle House; if it has a full menu — you should be okay, if it has a limited menu — you might want to worry, and if its shut down — you need to get the hell out of Dodge.

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All opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the contributors.

Hey everybody. Peter Zein here coming to you from. Where am I? Wisconsin. Today we are going to talk about the hurricane that has just hit the Florida coast in the Big Bend area. That’s the crook where peninsular

Florida meets the rest of the Panhandle. Hurricane Helene hit. Edit world will hit when I’m recording this probably hits about midnight, the morning that you’re going to be viewing this

anyway as a category three hurricane. Three things to keep in mind about hurricanes in general, and the fourth one that applies to this one specific. First of all, whenever hurricanes coming in, look for the leading right quadrant. So imagine yourself sitting in the eye of the hurricane four to the right. That’s where most of the winds are, that’s where most of the storms are, that’s where most of the tornadoes are, and most importantly, that’s where the storm surge is while the winds are dangerous, while the tornadoes are dangerous, while the storms are dangerous, while the rain is dangerous. The real problem with most hurricanes, especially the larger ones, is the storm surge, because it pushes several feet of water ahead of the storm. And the case of Helene, they’re expecting because of a combination of the strength of the winds and the path that it’s following. Storm surge is in excess of 15 maybe even hitting 20 feet, which would be, you know, bad. It’s one thing when a storm hits you

and it dumps a foot of rain on you, it’s quite another. When you’re under 20 feet of water, survival in that situation becomes questionable, and most buildings that are not hugely reinforced get washed away. The second thing to keep in mind is that when a storm is coming in, it’s obviously hitting low lying areas. This is a financial problem now. It’s not so much climate change, although that undoubtedly is going to be a bigger part of the problem moving forward,

but instead an insurance issue.

As Americans get older, as the baby boomers retire, more and more people are moving from the north and the interior of the country into the Sun Belt and the Southeast. Of course, everything from Corpus Christi

up to the Chesapeake is in hurricane alley. So the more storms we have, it’s not so much the more storms, it’s the more people that are living in those zones, the bigger the problem and the bigger the cost of rebuilding. And that means that insurance companies have no choice but to raise premiums because more people are living in danger zones, and the upper limit of what a single storm can do in terms of damage is getting higher and higher simply because there are more people in those zones, and that’s before you consider something like climate change as a rule. The two concerns about climate change in the short term, warmer seas can generate bigger storms because warmer air can hold more moisture. And in the longer term, higher sea levels mean that that storage surge starts six inches, a foot, a meter higher, which makes everything else that much more difficult to defend. The third thing is, if you find yourself in a zone that is having an actual store, arguably your single best source of information and how bad things really are is Waffle House. FEMA doesn’t simply set up in the parking lots of waffle house in order to monitor the situation and get everybody some food. They go there because the Waffle House menu covers all of the basics, flour, sugar, butter, eggs, that sort of thing. And so if the Waffle House is operating on a full menu. They know that the storm isn’t too bad, and they probably have the right amount of resources. If there’s a constrained menu that they know they need to take it seriously, and if the Waffle House shuts down, well, then all hell has broken loose, and they need to call back to Washington get as many resources and as many people as possible. Applies for any hurricane, and since hurricanes hit the South and the Southeast, there’s always a waffle house nearby. And then the final item is for this hurricane, specifically hurricane Helene, once it makes landfall, and the vicinity of the bend in the panhelma region is expected to go north through Western Georgia, and then when it hits roughly the Kentucky, Tennessee border, it’s expected to go west and then south into a curly Q before then jutting off to the northeast like a normal storm track would be. It’s gonna take it probably a day and a half to two days to do that curly queue. So you get a very large storm, hurricane level three, when it hits land that will then hang around for a couple of days in an area that is the most rugged in the United States, east of the Rocky line dumping feet of rain on an area that is already pretty serrated. So we’re not just going to have the storm surge damage that Florida.

Has a lot of experience in dealing with we’re going to get a huge amount of flooding more in the interior of the country, and FEMA will already be committed on the coast. So it’s going to be up to state authorities to mitigate what’s going on in Southern Appalachians. We don’t see that very often. Usually, storms should kind of blow through. Drop six inches of rain on their wave are gone. Here we’re talking about multiple feet of rain falling in the area between Lexington, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee. So stay safe. Watch Waffle House, obviously, listen to local law enforcement in FEMA. One more thing, if you’re in the way of a hurricane and you’re in the leading left quadrant, so sitting in the eye, looking forward, leading left, most of it’s going to miss you. You’re not going to get the storm surge. You’re not going to get a huge amount of storm we’re probably not going to have any tornadoes. In fact, it might be a calm, kind of meaty, little Blustery and clear day, so have a hurricane party, but don’t be a dick about it, because just to your east or north is going to be a community that’s fighting for its lives. And you definitely don’t want to get in a situation where you’re drawing number situation where you’re drawing emergency services away from them, so have a good time responsibly. You.

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