I am in mourning today over the losses so many people have faced because of this storm. Thanks to my dear friend Ann, she helped me realize that so many of you in other areas of the US may not know what’s going on and want to help as well. So this post will have nothing to do about puppies and everything to do about human compassion and willingness to care and share with each other.

Hurricane Helene was the strongest hurricane (in recorded history) to hit Florida’s big bend region (on the eastern edge of the panhandle). It is the deadliest hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The death toll is over 160 so far. We are still finding bodies, and there are still many, many people missing as I write this today six days after the hurricane hit land.

When the hurricane arrived. She barreled her way up through the panhandle of Florida, quickly shot through Georgia, and then slowed down and stalled over North Carolina and East Tennessee.
The reason she stalled involves atmospheric pressure conditions that I don’t fully understand, but the result was that this hurricane dropped 20 inches to over 30 inches of rain in some areas… that’s an estimated 40 trillion gallons of rain.

• 40 trillion gallons of water is enough to fill the Dallas Cowboy’s stadium 51,000 times.
• 40 trillion gallons of water is enough to cover the entire state of North Carolina with 3.5 FEET of water.

This was a combination of already rain-saturated ground before the hurricane hit, the hurricane/storm stalling over this region dumping unprecedented amounts of rainfall in a small area, and the geography of mountains channeling and concentrating all this water into the valleys below that created a perfect storm, so to speak, of conditions that caused this disaster.

Please feel free to share this. Hopefully it answers some questions of what has happened and why it is so devastating.

I hope you will consider donation to Samaritans Purse, and Convoy of Hope.

I truly believe we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus to help recover from this disaster.
Love y’all! Amy 💗 (credit: John Kitsteiner – errors edited)