HURRICANE AGNES AND THE COMING OF CONRAIL.

Hurricane Helene brought a lot of rain well into the Appalachians, with the mountainous parts of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee apparently hard hit.  The election-year political posturing and blaming has, regrettably, commenced, with Twitchy's Sam J. calling the acting president "a smug, puffy, incompetent cow," and Salena Zito suggesting there's selective indignation among the coastal cosmopolitans about difficulties confronting "marginalized" populations.

The people have been cut off from the world more than they usually are. Cell service, which has always been well below national averages, is almost nonexistent, and entire communities have been physically cut off because of downed bridges and washed-out roadways. Power is out, access to water and food supply is also cut off, and entire blocks of homes and business districts are now memories.

The images of cars, homes, and bridges being swept away, along with people desperate for water, food, and shelter, have been hard to consume. We are looking at our fellow citizens, our neighbors, and our families, and not understanding where the help is. We also don’t understand where the national news has been, as the story of Helene has earned scant coverage from NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Only Fox, which has a lot of local affiliates spread out across the region, was on top of the story.

So why is that? Well, in part, this region has no center of power among U.S. cultural curators; no Hollywood studios, only a few corporate headquarters compared to those located in places such as New York and Washington; and no big centers of wealth.

In fact, many people who work in Appalachia are in industries that are in the crosshairs of elites such as Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Kamala Harris. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, the regional planning arm of the federal government, the region’s top industries are natural gas extraction, mining, manufacturing, and textiles, all of which have been disfavored by various liberal policies.

And Hollywood's Militantly Normal James Woods posted a photo that sums up his discontent.

This image embodies the Biden/Harris administration in all its abject failure. A sleeping sand slug and a cackling drunk.

All while America sinks into the abyss. pic.twitter.com/34uX30Iv21

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 30, 2024

I'll get into the weeds of whether a strong named hurricane arriving late in September with a name starting with H is anomalous or not some other time.  With all of October to run in the northern hemisphere hurricane season, there are late-summer predictions pending review.

For now, though, we'll first call attention to a report by Sister Toldjah of the rescue and relief efforts under way.

While I can't speak to how much (if any) federal help is on the ground in western NC (and am disgusted by the indifference being shown by the Biden-Harris administration despite the federal disaster declarations and all that), I'd like to share a different perspective on the national media coverage in particular, the logistics of what's going on in that part of the state, and what's being done to help in terms of relief and rescue.

WCNC TV's Brad Panovich is a longtime meteorologist here in Charlotte who is so respected and well-liked by just about everyone that he could probably get elected mayor if he wanted to. His appreciation and love for what he does, and his commitment to making sure this part of the country is informed, "weather aware," and prepared for bad weather are unquestionable.

After disaster strikes, he's usually one of the ones on the air and social media day and night getting the word out on areas to avoid, places that need help, how to get/send help, debunking fake stories, etc.

That's exactly what he's done in the aftermath of Helene's devastation, which also impacted parts of Charlotte and surrounding areas with flooding and downed trees/power lines.

Related to the frustration with how the national media are in some cases treating what happened here as nothing more than a bad storm and not a catastrophic event, Panovich provided some much-needed perspective in a video shared Sunday, telling stories of what he'd heard from trusted sources about what was happening on the ground in western NC, how it was near impossible to get coverage for some areas due to widespread power/wifi outages and lack of ability to get to those areas by any way other than air.

Perhaps the most important thing he noted was that relief supplies are in fact pouring in and are being dropped in by air, with the locals stepping up all over NC and the NC National Guard doing their thing as well (and with Guardsmen from states like Florida coming to the rescue, too - thank you, Gov. DeSantis!).

Further, utility crews and first responders are filtering in from all over the country to help with the relief and recovery efforts. He also said he was confident we'd see more coverage from the national press in the coming days as electricity, wifi, and road accessibility were restored in the places they could be.

In other words, hope is not lost. Not by far. Please watch and share so that the people in the impacted areas who are fortunate enough to get cell service can see it and pass the message along and, in the process, know that help is already there and that more is coming.

I now turn to the story my post title hints at.  It's not unknown for hurricanes to turn into major rainfall events, well inland, and when one comes shortly after a major rainstorm, trouble follows.  So it was with Agnes, early in the 1972 hurricane season.  "News reports are comparing the current flooding in the Upper Susquehanna Valley to Hurricane Agnes (the storm that sank the Erie-Lackawanna.) The Knoebels Grove amusement park has some high water marks in the center of the grove for Agnes and other floods. They may have to add another one."  That excerpt was from 2006.  In 1972, Penn Central had recently filed for bankruptcy, and their cash-flow and operating difficulties spilled over into delayed per diem payments and interchange moves with the other Official Region railroads.  Then Agnes filled up the Susquehanna River, and Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley went into bankruptcy.

I admit to being a fan of Knoebels Grove, getting to them again in 2009 and 2012 to look at progress on the Flying Turns.  During my 2012 visit I noted the high water marks along the stream that runs through the park.

Notice that there was another rain event in 2011 that topped even the 2006 flood that didn't cancel Independence Day there.

Come 2014, the Flying Turns was in operation, and while I was there I found high water marks posted at the miniature golf course.  (Yes, as I get older, it's less roller coaster and more miniature golf.)

Agnes still brought the highest water.  Note, though, how there have been other serious floods at Knoebels, and we will likely see more.  Whether those come in train with a hurricane headed inland or climate chaos will be material for future research.