NORTH CAROLINA, USA — "...CATASTROPHIC FLOODING AND LANDSLIDES FOR THE MOUTAINS AND FOOTHILLS FROM HURRICANE HELENE..."

That line began one of the most serious statements sent by a National Weather Service employee I’ve seen in my career.

I asked Clay Chaney, the meteorologist who wrote the statement, what he was thinking while drafting it. He’s the social media manager at the NWS office in Greenville-Spartanburg.

At the time, he felt they should do more to get the message out to the public , making it urgent to catch people’s attention.

“We were trying to really hit the point hard about the actual devastation that was to come with Helene,” Chaney said. “But even in the comments, what people were saying, it seemed like they weren’t grasping how bad it could be.”

Hurricane Helene took

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