Over 100 years ago, Asheville and the surrounding area was hit by an incredibly powerful storm causing devastation almost equal in proportion to the one affecting Asheville now, Hurricane Helene.
“We got more rain than we would have otherwise because of the effects of climate change, but I just think one of the big lessons from this is that no matter how great our infrastructure and society systems are, there’s nothing you can do about a flood like this,” Chair of the UNC Asheville Environmental Sciences Department David Gillette said.
Gillette said there are many different factors in comparing the Great Flood of 1916 to Hurricane Helene, emphasizing the state of the environmental legislature.
“That was an interesting flood because back then, you know, we didn’t have a lot of the environmental legislation that we have now,” Gillette said. “One of the ways that our landscape was a lot different then was that we had a lot of deforestation going on.”
According to Gillette, the logging industry was a large factor to the devastation caused by The Great Flood of 1916. He said without trees and vegetation to slow the movement of water, the plants were unable to move it back into the atmosphere, which caused the intense level of flooding and erosion in the aftermath.
“When it rains, when that water runs down a hill, if there’s no vegetation on that hill it’s gonna run down faster, it’s gonna lose less of its power and it’s going to erode more, it’s gonna bring more sediment with it,” Gillette said.
Isabella Bascom, a sophomore psychology student and student environmental center employee, said she is concerned for the safety of this legislation in the current political climate.
“Considering we have someone in power that has stated before that he doesn’t necessarily believe in climate change, at least before we had at least a few environmentally led policies put in place and I’m honestly scared of how enforced they’re going to be now,” Bascom said.
Hurricane Helene and The Great Flood both caused the most significant damage to the River Arts District. Professor of Atmospheric Science at UNC Asheville Douglas Miller said part of the reason the area got hit so hard was due to the convergence of the Swannanoa and French Broad river.
“Between the French Broad to the south and Swannanoa to the east, again just like Helene, there’s a lot of water going into the headwaters of those two rivers, and of course they meet in Asheville, so that’s why Asheville just got slammed back in 1916 and of course it got slammed with Helene as well,” Miller said.
According to Gillette, the River Arts District housed a hub of industrial factories and warehouses in 1916, with less regulated chemicals than there are now.
“When water comes flooding through all of those, all the stuff it’s gonna bring into the water is gonna be really, really bad,” Gillette said, “but people didn’t know, and we didn’t pass the Clean Water Act until 1970, so there were no laws regulating the quality of our waters back then.”
According to Gillette and Miller, catastrophic weather events like Helene and The Great Flood are becoming more likely to occur in shorter intervals now due to climate change.
“Because of the warming ocean temperatures, I think we’re starting to have to rethink what is going to be our new normal and so therefore, how frequent are these things going to be happening?” Miller said.
The atmospheric science professor said when the ocean surface temperature is warmer, it makes it easier for moisture to move into the air. He said as climate change warms the ocean more each year, storm season will become slightly more intense in tandem.
“It’s hard to believe, you know, with the way the climate is changing, it might not be another 100 years before something like this could happen again,” Gillette said, “I’ve read some studies that said that the amount of rainfall we got from Hurricane Helene probably increased by 10-20% because of changes to the climate over the last several decades.”
