Helene Forces Asheville Scientists to Live Through Nightmare Climate Case Study
The city is home to the world’s largest collection of weather data. But it’s inaccessible as the federal data center that houses it remains without power.
Flooded streets following hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina, on Sept. 28.
Photographer: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images
Ana Pinheiro Privette helps run a water security research center at the top school for civil engineering in the US. On Friday, as she watched Hurricane Helene’s rains unleash an unprecedented flooding disaster in her home of Asheville, it occurred to her that in Europe — she grew up in Portugal — houses are often made of stone or concrete. And that’s why she’d never seen one float away in floodwaters before Helene.
She spent the next three days trying to reach her kids and parents to let them know she was OK, making her one of the many researchers adjusting to the new reality that has overtaken one of the world’s most important hubs of climate research. She and others have been in survival mode, conserving gasoline, searching for clean drinking water, and huddling near any power source or wireless access.