The Highwire with Del Bigtree - DID DAMS PLAY A ROLE IN NC’S CATASTROPHIC FLOODING?

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Duke Energy, the company in charge of hydroelectric dams along a major lake system in North Carolina, is under scrutiny following the catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Helene for its handling of flood controls at major dams which could have potentially eased the degree of flood waters. Hear about the legal action that has been taken against the company for other devastating flood damage in the area.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

One of the things I want to hit on in North Carolina, so there are a lot of moving parts. People are still kind of digging out and picking through things to see who's at fault, was anybody at fault, was this just truly a natural disaster? And some of the local reporting in Charlotte was reporting this, clean flooding damages, mountain island lake homes. Some blame Duke Energy for it. Duke Energy is the hydroelectric dam company. They run about 11 lake system, and all of these systems come down from base.

You've come down to the mountain, they go into the ocean, but they're grabbing energy from this flowing water that time. But there are these lake systems that they can control somewhat the levels of water in these dams. And so when we saw the people experience these gushing waters coming down, a lot of people are questioning, was there some issues with the dams, were anybody else at fault? And you go into this article, and they're quoting some residents. One of the residents says they could have taken steps well in advance to drastically lower

levels at all lakes in the 11 lake system to the first. bare minimum, they're allowed to, said Jenderson 64. But then they spoke to Duke Energy, a spokesperson, and they said, due to the size of Mountain Island Lake. Now, Mountain Island Lake is like the choke point. That's the one lake that these run into, but that's the choke point for this water flow. Due to the size of Mountain Island Lake and an historic amount of rainfall from this event, any additional storage that would have been created in the lake would not have prevented the flooding associated with the storm. Williamson wrote to the observer, if Duke Energy began aggressively moving water downstream before a reliable or accurate forecast was available,

it could have risked the entire region suffering severe water shortages, including drinking water, if the storm missed the region or dry weather persisted. Now, it goes on to talk to a river keeper there, and he said the important thing to remember is Duke is not able to quickly move water through the system, he said. They need a long run-up time because the reservoirs were not designed for flood control. So when the forecast changes quickly or worsens, they're unable to adjust. Jones's riverkeeper said Mountain Island lakes turbines can move 10,000 cubic feet of water per second or about 75,000 gallons per second. He said the influx of water into the lake peaked at about 100,000 cubic feet per second. So it's one interesting point there is they can't move this water quickly.

So that seems like in a position when the storm hits, they would be at a disadvantage just because of the nature of their system. And so we go to Duke Energy, the actual website, and they have lake levels and they have the historical levels there. They keep track of this almost daily. You can see this chart here. The black line is which you don't want to go over. That's the max. And then the target is the green. And you can see there right at the end, they went over the max.

And that's when the hurricane and the rainfall happened. But one of the criticisms was even the target, that green line, they were running above the target well before the hurricane hit. You can see several months prior to the hurricane hitting. So one of the criticisms is why are they running above the target? If they weren't running above the target, would this flooding be as bad? And if we go, if we go to the actual numbers, just to look at it from a numbers point of view, they want about 96. That's just the levels there, 96 feet.

And you can see there, that's the, on the right side, that's kind of the target. And they're running 97, 98. You're getting that for quite a bit of time there. And then you see the next chart, this is when the rainfall really happens here. And we go over that max, we're at 107. It peaks at 105. And that's when you have a lot of problems here.

You see a lot of this flooding, and that's when that happens. And this isn't the first time Duke Energy has been involved in a lawsuit. In the storms of 2019, flooding happening, people lost homes. This is one of the headlines, lawsuit against Duke Energy proceeds. As Charlotte Community confronts challenges after historic flood, the company actually settled a court, so no wrongdoing was admitted. But there's been, you know, legal action before. So what legal action be pushed on at this time? We don't know. I mean, we're going to, people are still looking at this investigation. A lot of people I talk to, some experts I talk to, we're talking

about the weather front. The way it came in, it came up through that, you know, that armpit part of Florida. And it came right up to, up through North Carolina. And when it hit the mountains, the eastern side of the Appalachians, it did what was called an orographic lift. And this is a weather phenomenon, which basically, as this picture shows, moist air hits the mountains. It's forced upwards. And as it cools, it cools really quick. And it condenses right into rain. And that rain fell down that eastern side of the mountains.

And so that was the weather explanations for this. It's not this unknown phenomenon. And something similar happened in 1916 when Asheville was essentially washed, way because it was hit with two consecutive hurricanes at the time. And I guess the question at this point becomes these facilities, and there's the hydroelectric dam, but there's a lot, there's a lot to consider, too, how buildings are built, how houses are built? Are we talking, we're building these for 100-year storms or 500-year storms because now we're being told that these are 1,000-year storms coming, thousand-year storms coming? So do we have to look at it? We really have to

take a different look at infrastructure, perhaps, with these coming changes that we're seeing. Yeah, I mean, look, and I love your reporting on this because, you know, when you get online, I think we're different than most shows, which is we're just not jumping into the alarming story, the sensational story that will get the clicks. You know, I can see, I mean, I always try to put myself in the shoes of, you know, the other side. In this circumstance, should the water, you know, have been let's let out, yeah, if you decide, hey, let's empty the reservoir, you call it right, you hit the, you know, it's like blackjack, right? you're going to bet on a set of cards that the weather is going to hit and it's going to be all this rain. But imagine you let all the water out and then suddenly there is no rain. And next you have a drought and now everybody's suing you because why did you give our water away? And do we really want to live in a world where we've got bureaucrats deciding to empty our reservoirs every time a storm might hit us?

I mean, look at Florida. Another hurricane doesn't have a lot of water in it. I mean, so you got to at some point have some forgiveness and also accept that nature and God, You know, are not controlled by man. We can't outsmart every single weather anomaly. And so I think it's, you know, really good to just, you know, we look for the corruption. It's what we do. But Jeffrey, one of the things, one of the quotes that I think about all the time in the work that we do,

when I try to assess what I'm looking at is something called Hanlon's razor. I swear everybody, this quote is on my mind all the time. never attribute to malice, that which is adequately explained by stupidity. So much of the work that we do, I'm like, boy, it sure looks like this is on purpose, but could it be explained by just a bunch of idiots running around with their hair on fire? When you look at the elections, some of these people, you can't even believe who actually runs for office and who gets elected. And then we're surprised when they don't do a very good job. But, you know, a lot of people are just, I think making the best decisions they can.

I don't think Majoricus fits into that category. I think there's something else going on there. I can't explain the consistent disastrous results of the decision making there. I start moving away from, you know, stupid and thinking, you're up to something. There's something wrong when we're pouring money into places. No one in America thinks it should be going, and it's not available to regular citizens. But, you know, when I watch this, Jeffrey, it still comes down to, hey, everybody, be prepared. Because no matter what hits you, you know who cares about you the most, you.

So if you don't have that storage supply in your house, ready to not have power for a week or two, get it. If you don't have an escape plan for whatever you could imagine would be the emergency that would suit the topography that you live in, then make one. Don't be waiting for someone else to come and save you. actually be the one that thought it through this so that maybe you can help a couple of people around you.