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This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.

The devastation from Hurricane Helene is catastrophic, and among the hardest hit

places is Western North Carolina, which some had previously dubbed climate proof. Today,

Stephanie Desmond talks to Dr. Joseph Barbera, co-director of the George Washington University

Institute for Crisis Disaster and and Risk Management about what happened

and how we can better prepare for what is to come. Let's listen.

Joe Barbera, thanks so much for joining me. You're welcome. It's a pleasure and honor to be here,

Stephanie. So I want to tap into your expertise in disaster management and response as we look at the aftermath

of Hurricane Helene, which went straight up through the Gulf, through Florida, all the way up

to Western North Carolina, which is really far from the Gulf Coast. And the devastation and the pictures we've seen are horrible.

This isn't a place that you would imagine would be so devastated by a hurricane, is it?

Not normally, but with what was projected, you know, three, four days ahead of time.

A lot of this could have been in some ways expected, although it's

really hard to comprehend what this is like when it actually hits, particularly in the mountain

areas where, you know, it's one thing to have a flood. It's a whole lot of thing when you

have that kind of water hitting the mountains and it becomes a flash flood with a downhill

movement of that time, that much water

and the force that it carries and how rapidly it can rise in narrow valleys.

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