Hurricane Helene caused chaos to spread across the American southeast since last week. The immense storm has ripped up roads, flooded towns and could be about to bring the auto industry to its knees. However, none of those issues were on the minds of this couple attempting to flee the storm after they were nearly taken out by a terrifying mudslide brought on by Helene.
After Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast last week, it made its way across America becoming a tropical storm as it traversed states like Georgia and North Carolina. When it passed through North Carolina, heavy rain sparked flooding and even caused land slips in some areas, reports the BBC.
One of those landslides was caught on camera by a pair of very lucky drivers who were making their way out of the area impacted by Helene last weekend. In footage shared by the Weather Channel, a camera pointed out the rear window of a couple’s car shows the rain thundering down on the highway as they drive along.
A few seconds in, there are shouts of “woah” from the car’s inhabitants, before a wall of brown mud splashes over the roadway. The mudslide splashes over the road at an alarming rate, collecting a parked SUV and a semi-truck caught up in its path. After the slide hits, the camera recording goes dark.
Thankfully, the pair in the car are able to continue on their way and out of the path of destruction, as another camera up front captured their onward journey.
The mudslide is just the latest in a long line of destruction left in the wake of Helene as it battered the U.S. So far this week, it’s emerged that hundreds of cars at a dealership were destroyed by flooding caused by the storm, roads have been ripped up in its path and a mine that sources essential elements for the microchips used in modern cars has been shuttered by the storm.
That’s before you consider the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage caused along the storm’s path. Clearly, it’s going to be a while before the full extent of the damage caused by Helene is realized.