Vox

The scenes from North Carolina are shocking: roads and bridges washed away. Houses ripped from their foundations. Entire towns reduced to mud and debris.

On Thursday night, Hurricane Helene slammed Florida as a Category 4 storm with winds reaching 140 miles per hour. Along the coast, Helene knocked down trees and power lines, and caused record storm surge.

Yet some of its most devastating impacts were farther inland as the storm moved across the Southeast. Even before the bulk of the storm arrived in North Carolina, Helene started dumping rain in southern Appalachia — and loads of it. Over the last several days some regions in western North Carolina, near the city of Asheville, recorded more than 2.5 feet.