BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) — Scientists studying damage from Hurricane Helene hope to better predict landslides in the future.

Brian Yanites is an associate professor at Indiana University. He studies earth and atmospheric sciences. He was monitoring the river levels outside Asheville, North Carolina, when Helene was coming through. “It was a full 10 feet higher, 50% higher then it’s previous record. So, unprecedented? Yes, definitely.”

Yanites is on a team of scientists studying Hurricane Helene. Their main focus will be to see how the rain impacted the landslides, which impacted the flooding.

“A flood happens when too much water comes into a river, and it can’t stay in it’s banks anymore and it leaves its banks. When you add sediment to the river you’re taking up some of that space that that water can fill up and so now the river can’t carry as much water,” Yanites said.

Like a clogged bathroom sink with hair?

“Exactly. Some of this flooding might have been exasperated, might be bigger than what the rainfall itself would have caused because of all these landslides and debris flows,” Yanites said.

Travis O’Brien, a climate scientist at IU, said, “This is probably something we’ll be talking about like Hurricane Katrina.”

O’Brien says climate change played a role in how things played out. “We know that a warmer atmosphere holds a lot more water. So, more water in an atmosphere in a hurricane means a lot more rain. And then on top of that, one of things that I think may have contributed to this being impactful was how quickly it intensified. Going from a Category 1 up to a Category 4 in such a short period of time affects, I think, people’s perception of risk.”.

Yanites says his research into landslides and flooding goes hand in hand with climate change research.
“We can take the results from Professor O’Brien’s predictions of changes in extreme rainfall and say something about how that’s going to increase of landslides, debris flows and flooding.”

The goal of better predicting landslides is ultimately to save lives. Yanite said, with better predictions, people can be told, “The rainfall is going to get to a level that is at risk for landslides and debris flows. You might want to consider evacuating your home.”