Dam Failure Imminent in North Carolina After Helene Hits State: National Weather Service

Flood waters wash over Guy Ford Road bridge on the Watauga River as Hurricane Helene approaches in the North Carolina mountains, in Sugar Grove, N.C., on Sept. 26, 2024. Jonathan Drake/Reuters

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued an urgent flash flood emergency warning that a North Carolina dam is at imminent risk of failure as Tropical Storm Helene dumped heavy rainfall on the region. Officials later on Friday said that the dam is holding for now.

“Urgent: flash flood emergency for the Lake Lure Dam! Dam failure imminent! Rsidents [sic] below the dam need to evacuate to higher ground immediately,” NWS’s office in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina, wrote in an all-caps message on social media.

By Friday afternoon, officials said that dam’s wall is holding, but they warned that the Broad River is overtopping its boundaries and support structures are compromised.

“Evacuation sirens are sounding downstream of the Dam,” the Rutherford County Emergency Management agent wrote on Facebook. “Emergency personnel are working with the structural engineers and are ogling house to house to ensure all citizens have been evacuated.”

Lake Lure, located in Rutherford County, is one of many areas across western North Carolina that have received several inches of rain since Helene, which was downgraded from a Category 4 hurricane after hitting Florida on Thursday night, impacted the region.

Helene is forecast to dump several more inches of rain across North Carolina and other southeastern U.S. states in the coming days, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). A forecast updated by the NHC on Friday at around noon shows that several inches of rain is still expected in western North Carolina, namely in the Appalachian Mountain regions of the state.

“Over portions of the Central and Southern Appalachians, Helene is expected to produce additional rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches leading to total rain accumulations of 6 to 12 inches, with isolated totals around 20 inches,” the NHC said.

“This rainfall will result in catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with significant and record river flooding. Numerous significant landslides are expected in steep terrain across the Southern Appalachians.”

Earlier, the Rutherford Emergency Management Agency, in a social media post on Friday, told residents who live on certain roads in the area to evacuate to higher ground due to water overtopping the Lake Lure Dam.

It came after the county agency confirmed that “catastrophic flows along the Broad River into Lake Lure” were overtopping the Lake Lure Dam, resulting in significant flooding downstream, according to the NWS.

“Evacuations are underway downstream of Lake Lure Dam. Residents are urged to seek higher ground NOW and obey all evacuation orders from Rutherford County Emergency Management to protect your life and the lives of your family,” the weather agency wrote.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said in a briefing on Friday morning that there had been two storm-related deaths in the state and he expected more to come.

Close to 300 roads were closed and over 100 swift-water rescues had occurred so far, Cooper said. He added that the storm, particularly in western North Carolina, is causing life-threatening flash flooding, numerous landslides, and power outages from downed trees.

“The priority now is saving lives,” Cooper said, telling people to stay off the roads unless they were seeking higher ground.

“With the rain that they already had been experiencing before Helene’s arrival, this is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina,” Cooper said.

Portions of Interstates 40 and 26 were closed due to flooding, officials said.

In all, officials across several states say that at least 22 people have died across the United States due to Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Thursday night. The storm appears to have left more than 5 million people without power, according to Poweroutage.us

The Associated Press contributed to this report.