Here’s an excerpt from the Asheville Citizen-Times article:
A decade later, the numbers remain astounding.
Eleven deaths across Western North Carolina. One hundred and forty homes destroyed, another 16,234 damaged.
More than $200 million in total damages, including $87 million in lost tourism.
In September 2004, the remnants of Hurricanes Frances and Ivan, arriving nine days apart, delivered a one-two gut punch to the mountains in the form of flooding and landslides.
A decade later, local leaders and government experts believe they learned some hard lessons from the storms and have better safeguards in place, including more measuring gauges and a stronger warning system, but they’re frank in their assessment that it could happen again.
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