Flash Flood — Haywood, North Carolina

2021-08-17 · near Burnett Siding, Haywood, North Carolina

Event narrative

Emergency management and stream gauges reported catastrophic flash flooding developed within the Pigeon River watershed after 6 to 8 inches of rain fell in just a few hours across the northern slopes of the Balsams. This was on top of 5 to 10 inches that fell over the Shining Rock Wilderness during the morning of the 16th, resulting in 36-hour totals of more than a foot. Flash flooding initially developed along the West Fork and especially the East Fork of the Pigeon River. Water from the latter stream, swept downstream through the Cruso community causing widespread damage. Six people were killed in Cruso, four of them in a campground along the East Fork, where numerous recreational vehicles and automobiles were swept away. Water from the two forks of the river rushed downstream to the main channel of the Pigeon, causing major flooding along the stream in Canton and Clyde for the first time since Tropical Cyclone Ivan in September 2004. Numerous buildings in downtown Canton were inundated. In total, around 700 homes were impacted by flooding, with a couple of hundred of those destroyed. Numerous vehicles were also swept away or otherwise damaged and hundreds of people were rescued. Dozens of roads were flooded, with many roads and bridges damaged or destroyed.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Storm Fred made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on the 16th and lifted steadily north through Georgia and into the southern Appalachians during the 16th and throughout the 17th. Tropical moisture and strong southeast upslope flow into the Blue Ridge mountains resulted in widespread showers and some thunderstorms producing extremely heavy rainfall rates. By the time the rain tapered off by the end of the 17th, 24-hour rainfall amounts of 5-12 inches were reported across portions of the mountains and foothills. This was in addition to a small area of 5-10 inch amounts that fell across portions of the southern North Carolina mountains during the morning of the 16th. The result of this rainfall was significant to catastrophic flash flooding across portions of the French Broad and Pigeon River basins, including some of the worst flooding to impact these areas in almost 20 years. The most severe flooding occurred in portions of southern and central Haywood County, where a number of fatalities and hundreds of millions of dollars and damage occurred. In addition, a brief tornado touched down in Iredell County and tracked into Alexander County.

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Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 982265. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.