00:00What have you seen so far, and what, particularly about Helene, is standing out?
00:05Yeah, the whole flight. I mean, it's an interesting situation.
00:09It's the first time I've been able to be on one of the Hurricane Hunter flights.
00:1230 years in this agency, and I was never able to do it because I was working on the ground.
00:16We saw just an incredible, powerful storm.
00:19I mean, just to be able to experience that from the air.
00:22There was one point entering the fourth penetration into the eye.
00:26Actually, the storm actually pushes up 1,500 feet almost in an instant.
00:31So it's a powerful storm, absolutely powerful storm.
00:33So we just, like just listening to what you were saying,
00:36we just got to encourage everyone to really take it serious,
00:38not just on the coast, but well inland as well.
00:41All right, Ken, you were talking about just how powerful Helene is right now
00:44whenever you took that flight and that pass.
00:46So it does look like Helene is going to continue to strengthen and intensify.
00:51So with that in mind, give our viewers,
00:53give the folks that are in the direct path of this storm,
00:56just your advice as a meteorologist,
00:58as someone who has literally seen this thing up close and personal,
01:01of what they should do as this storm approaches.
01:04Yeah, the biggest thing is take it serious.
01:06You know, Tallahassee, you think about the panhandle,
01:09you think about the storm surge areas.
01:11I mean, anytime we forecast 15 to 20 feet,
01:14it's just absolutely catastrophic type of storm surge, the rainfall.
01:17And, you know, and I've been doing this so long,
01:19you know, I can almost write some of the script for this.
01:22You'll have the impacts right along the coast.
01:24You have the flooding and the storm surge,
01:26but so many times we have more direct fatalities inland.
01:31So places all through Georgia with the winds and the rain,
01:34up into the Carolinas,
01:36the places that we've highlighted with that heavy rain in the mountains of
01:40Western North Carolina, East Tennessee,
01:43please take that serious because that rainfall often will lose more people to
01:47the inland rain than we actually do on the coast.
01:49So my biggest advice is please pay attention to what we're saying,
01:53what you all are saying at AccuWeather, what everybody's saying,
01:56please pay attention and take this one serious.
01:59All right, Ken, thank you so much for that advice.
02:01We're going to continue to do our best to help keep people safe and informed
02:04here as Helene continues to make that northward trek.
02:07That was Ken Graham, Director of the National Weather Service.
02:09Thank you so much for joining us.
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