The power of water. How Helene devastated western North Carolina and left communities in ruins | National & World [Video]

(CNN) — On the last Thursday of September, as Hurricane Helene was setting out on a path of destruction from Florida to the southern Appalachians, Kim and Rod Ashby stopped at the home they were building in Elk Park, North Carolina.

A light rain was falling but the Ashbys “felt safe there,” with pillars raising their second home about 20 feet above the ground near the Tennessee state line, Kim Ashby’s daughter, Jessica Meidinger, recalled.

For days before Helene made landfall in Florida, the National Weather Service in North Carolina warned of an historic combination of heavy rain, life-threatening flooding and catastrophic landslides along the mountains. A system that moved into the area before Helene had already left the ground and rivers saturated.

More than 10 hours before the hurricane would make landfall hundreds of miles away, the Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, weather forecast office predicted: “This will be one of the most …