The State of Alabama is lending help to areas feeling the impact of major severe storm systems and recovering from the devastation left behind.
More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.
That's enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys' stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep (more than 1 meter). It's enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools.
In the wake of Hurricane Helene, Governor Kay Ivey on Monday directed the activation of an Alabama National Guard team to assist in the most heavily impacted areas of North Carolina.
The 13-person team consists of 11 Airmen from around the state who serve as Alabama’s Fatality Search and Recovery Team (FSRT). The team also includes a chaplain and chaplain’s assistant.
“Hurricane Helene left warzone-like devastation in its path, and Alabama is here to lend a helping hand as our neighboring states begin responding and recovering,” said Governor Ivey in a press release.
“North Carolina was especially impacted, and without hesitation, I am directing an Alabama National Guard team, in addition to other first responders, to aid in the search and rescue mission there. I pray for the safety of this team and that they are successful in their mission to rescue as many people as possible in the devastated parts of North Carolina.”
The activation order for the FSRT comes as several western North Carolina counties endured unprecedented flooding with reports of more than 1,000 individuals missing after the storm subsided.
Additionally, Alabama has sent three Swift Water Rescue Teams with 1 Cadaver Dog team.
The flood damage from the rain across the Southeast is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials.
Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, calculated the amount of rain, using precipitation measurements made in 2.5-mile-by-2.5 mile grids as measured by satellites and ground observations. He came up with 40 trillion gallons through Sunday for the eastern United States, with 20 trillion gallons of that hitting just Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida from Hurricane Helene.
Clark, who spends much of his work on issues of shrinking western water supplies, said to put the amount of rain in perspective, it's more than twice the combined amount of water stored by two key Colorado River basin reservoirs: Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Several meteorologists said this was a combination of two, maybe three storm systems. Before Helene struck, rain had fallen heavily for days because a low pressure system had “cut off” from the jet stream — which moves weather systems along west to east — and stalled over the Southeast. That funneled plenty of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. And a storm that fell just short of named status parked along North Carolina's Atlantic coast, dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello.
North Carolina weather officials said their top measurement total was 31.33 inches in the tiny town of Busick. Mount Mitchell also got more than 2 feet of rainfall.
