Portrait Of Hurricane Florence Fallout Emerges

As officials continue to tabulate the fallout from Hurricane Florence, it is clear the damage wrought by polluted floodwaters will be among the major challenges the region faces.

Officials continue to assess the loss of life connected to the storm.

“Seventeen deaths have been confirmed in North Carolina and six in South Carolina as a result of Florence,” ABC11 reported, noting that the North Carolina Department of Public Safety released a breakdown of deaths per county.

Meanwhile, experts sought to spread the message that floodwaters could pose a risk because they are contaminated.

“Floodwaters and standing water are often contaminated, posing several risks, such as infectious diseases, chemical hazards and injuries,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Indy Weekly warned about the potential for hog waste to cause groundwater contamination as a result of the storm.

“There are some nine million pigs in North Carolina, most of them concentrated where the storm is going to hit hardest. Those pigs produce lots and lots of waste, much more than humans do. At most concentrated animal feeding operations — what the industry calls farms — that waste is liquefied and stored in open-air lagoons,” the report stated.

“But the fear for environmental advocates is that, when you have a huge rain event that sees ten or twenty or more inches in a short period of time, those lagoons will flood, spilling their contents into nearby waterways, killing wildlife, and potentially contaminating groundwater,” it continued.

[UPDATE: That fear has been realized, reports Quartz.]

Coal ash ponds appear to be another source of water pollution as a result of the storm.

“Duke Energy said the collapse of a coal ash landfill at the L.V. Sutton Power Station near Wilmington, North Carolina, is an ongoing situation, with an unknown amount of potentially contaminated stormwater flowing into a nearby lake. At a different power plant near Goldsboro, three old coal ash dumps capped with a layer of soil were inundated by the Neuse River,” the Associated Press reported.

In perhaps the most striking illustration of the fact that floodwaters contain a complicated mess of components, wildlife experts noted that they also contain venomous snakes.

“Threats from Hurricane Florence don't only include storm surges, flooding, and rough winds - they also include snakes. That's right, those slithery serpents will be way more visible after the storm hits,” WTVD reported.

“Thad Bowman with Alligator Adventure said that the flooding following Florence will stem from snake habitats along waterways. This could potentially dislocate them into the flood waters,” Myrtle Beach Online reported.