Weather Adventures • Bertha 1996 • Fran 1996 • Silver Creek Flood 2004 • Patton Road • Millersville F2

Panoramic view of a very swollen Silver Creek taken at 12:10 pm EDT on Wednesday September 8, 2004

Same area after Silver Creek had fully receded back it's normal channel.

(Click on box 1 in the aerial photo below to see the full size versions these composite photos)

As the remnants of Hurricane Frances passed over our area, Burke County experienced some of the worst and most destructive flooding in it's history. Nearly all the waterways in our area were overflowing their banks. Many people were caught off guard by the rapidly rising flood waters and had to be rescued from their homes and vehicles. In some places it took days for the water to recede and only then was the extent of the damage apparent. Many of the roads and bridges in the region were unusable, business and homes were completely ruined.

Our weather station (KNCMORGA3) observed (see station data graphs from the period near the bottom of the page) Frances as the storm passed to our west through Eastern Tennessee. It recorded 6.43 inches of rain from the period beginning at 2 am EDT on Tuesday September 7th and ending at 11:59 pm EDT on September 8th, 2005.  That was nearly 6.5 inches of rain during a 48 hour period. That's a lot of precipitation for such a short span of time, thus allowing the massive and rapid flooding in the region.

In our neighborhood Silver Creek had completely overflowed it's banks. At the height of the flood the water was more than 200 feet from the center of the creek flowing over the creek side portion of our property. Pretty incredible sight to behold. We took a lot of photos and video of Silver Creek during the flooding. The aerial photo below shows the maximum extent of the flood along Silver Creek in our area. To view the photos and video taken at various points during the deluge, click on the appropriate numbered box to see the images from that area.

View the video clips here:    Area #1      Area #2

On Thursday the 9th, we drove around the areas in Morganton that we could get to and took some pictures of the flooding and damage. Click HERE to view these photos