As cleanup and recovery continues in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, officials with the Tennessee Valley Authority have recently shared deep details on Hurricane and Tropical Storm Helene — and its impact on the electrical authority’s hydrological system.
During last week’s TVA Board of Directors Quarterly Meeting at Murray State University, TVA Chief Operating Officer Don Moul said the weather event arrived in the region as a tropical storm on September 27 — and in its wake left a massive scale of “immense destruction.”
Many flood records, and several “firsts,” were observed — and he noted the amount of rainfall observed was “record-setting.” Specifically, the eastern Tennessee watershed received an equivalent two months of rainfall in 72 hours, and the flood of record was either approached or exceeded in multiple tributaries.
It was the first time in TVA’s history, he said, that officials had to execute rescue procedures near one the company’s dams.
However, he also noted that several preventative measures were taken prior to the storm’s arrival — clearly preventing wider-spread damages.
In fact, Moul said:
+ Flood mitigation strategies prevented more than $400 million in potential damages
+ Dams in the TVA system stored more than 400 billion gallons of water, enough to fill more than 610,000 Olympic swimming pools
+ Without TVA’s hydroelectric system, Lenoir City and Chattanooga, Tennessee, would have been more than 20 feet higher than observed flood stage
+ Nolichucky Dam, located in Greeneville, Tennessee, withstood twice the flow of Niagara Falls
+ And between September 29 and October 5, TVA’s hydro units generated an average 2,860 megawatts of clean energy per day, which is more than 1,600 megawatts more than the average during the same time last year
TVA President & CEO Jeff Lyash, alongside TVA Board Member and East Tennessee State University President Brian Noland, said it was community and cooperation that changed, and saved, lives.
During the event, TVA reported 21 power outages. All but three were restored within one hour, while one effort took two hours, another took about four hours, and a final outage lasted three weeks.
