The 4-day deluge first filled creeks and saturated the soil with 10 to 30 inches of rain, increasing in power before the worst part of the hurricane reached the region at Category 4 strength, culminating in an atmospheric river, forty to a hundred mile per hour winds, and tornadoes that residents say passed over the mountains making a "snap, snap, snap" sound as they broke trees like matchsticks.
The worst part of the storm hit between 4am and 7am, when people were fast asleep.
The Cane, Toe, French Broad, Swannanoa and Green Rivers inhaled communities, and by the time they reached inhabited areas, the rivers were cresting as much as 25 to 35 feet above ordinary levels. Floodwaters literally submerged towns Marshall, gutted Biltmore Village, and totally destroyed the River Arts District in Asheville. Elsewhere, thousands of mudslides took out homes and communities.
Comment: Incompetence and negligence, or criminal conspiracy and cover-up? Probably a mix of both. Authoritarians aren't wrong to place their trust in an orderly, methodical process of search-and-rescue and clearing/clean-up, but we all know by now that there are unscrupulous actors in all levels of government, and that they're not beyond lying about the death toll in a natural disaster for a whole host of motivations - political, ideological and/or personal.