WILKES COUNTY, N.C. — Cities across the Piedmont Triad are preparing for Helene's wind and rain. Crews are keeping their eyes open for flooding, outages, and landslides.
Helene is forecast to cause significant impacts including flash flooding, and a different concern we really haven’t had to worry about in years - landslides, damaging debris, and slope failures across steep terrain across portions of western and central North Carolina.
Wilkes County
The Wilkes County Emergency Services Director, Jason Reavis, said their Emergency Operation Center will open Thursday at 8 a.m.
The big issue they are focusing on is the heavy rainfall, winds, and potential mudslides.
"You can't really see them. You can't see it as it's happening and you know, this storm system is gonna come in during the night, and that's when the heavy rains are gonna come out," said Reavis.
Duke Energy said they have crews stationed in Western North Carolina ready to go in case they are needed.
Localized flooding, flash flooding and landslides can cause some pretty challenging conditions for crews to get to outages.
Because of that, and knowing there could be a potential delay, Duke Energy started its process for managing water levels.
"We manage a lot of waterways in the state. So we have begun moving water through our river system so that we can help keep the water levels lower in anticipation of rainfall coming in. And if individuals do live on our managed lakes, we do encourage them to keep up to date with water levels," said spokesperson for Duke Energy, Jeff Brooks.
Alleghany County
Alleghany County Emergency Services said it's taking preparations as well, ahead of the storm.
Crews and equipment are ready to go, and generators are gassed up, and ready to go if need be.
Alleghany County said it does have some low-lying areas but will be keeping an eye on them as the rain comes down.
Yadkin County
Yadkin County officials say they are monitoring the storm at this point and will take action as necessary.
NCDOT said crews are removing downed trees or limbs ahead of this storm.
Barricades will also be staged in areas prone to flooding.
"We are also making sure our employees are getting rest because once this event starts, we're gonna be probably working through 24 hours until this event concludes. And so we are doing everything we can to be prepared, and to be rested and to hopefully make it through this event with little to any interruptions to traffic," said NCDOT spokesperson, Jen Goodwin.