Peeks Creek is a stream located in Macon County, North Carolina. [1] It is a tributary of the Cullasaja River, into which it flows a few miles or kilometers upstream of Franklin.
In September 2004, it had a catastrophic flood and mudslide, after massive rains left over from Hurricane Ivan struck the same area soaked by former Hurricane Frances a week before. The slide started on Fishhawk Mountain (also called Big Fish Hawk Mountain), where it continued into the creek. The slide and the water dammed up behind a bridge, then broke through, making the creek about 50 yards (46 m) or meters wide instead of the normal two or three. The mass of trees, boulders, and mud forced at least fifteen houses off their foundations, one man riding his home about 500 feet (150 m) downstream. Another home was pierced by a tree from end to end, the picture appearing in a local newspaper. [2] [3]
The area of the slide is about two miles (3 km) or three kilometers long, with much of the mud and some of the smaller debris continuing into and down the Cullasaja. [4]
The unincorporated community of Peeks Creek was devastated by the historic event, with at least five people killed. [4]
Macon County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,014. Its county seat is Franklin.
Franklin is a town in and the county seat of Macon County, North Carolina, United States. It is situated within the Nantahala National Forest. The population was reported to be 4,175 in the 2020 census, an increase from the total of 3,845 tabulated in 2010.
Highlands is an incorporated town in Macon County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located on a plateau in the southern Appalachian Mountains, within the Nantahala National Forest, it lies mostly in southeastern Macon County and slightly in southwestern Jackson County, in the Highlands and Cashiers Townships, respectively. The permanent population was 1,014 at the 2020 census.
Hurricane Opal was a large and powerful tropical cyclone that caused severe and extensive damage along the northern Gulf Coast of the United States in October 1995. The fifteenth named storm, ninth hurricane and strongest tropical cyclone of the unusually active 1995 Atlantic hurricane season, Opal developed from the interaction of a tropical wave and a low-pressure area near the Yucatán Peninsula on September 27 as Tropical Depression Seventeen. The depression crossed the Yucatán Peninsula and intensified into a tropical storm on September 30. Opal intensified into a hurricane on October 2 after entering the Gulf of Mexico. The cyclone turned northeastward and strengthened significantly. By October 4, Opal was an intense 150 mph (240 km/h), Category 4 hurricane. With a minimum pressure of 916 millibars, Hurricane Opal was the most intense category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record. However, the cyclone abruptly weakened to a low-end Category 3 hurricane prior to making landfall on the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola later that day. The storm quickly unraveled as it moved inland and became extratropical on October 5. The remnants of Opal moved northward and dissipated over Ontario the following day.
The Lassen volcanic area presents a geological record of sedimentation and volcanic activity in and around Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California, U.S. The park is located in the southernmost part of the Cascade Mountain Range in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Pacific Oceanic tectonic plates have plunged below the North American Plate in this part of North America for hundreds of millions of years. Heat and molten rock from these subducting plates has fed scores of volcanoes in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia over at least the past 30 million years, including these in the Lassen volcanic areas.
Mount Adams, known by some Native American tribes as Pahto or Klickitat, is an active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range. Although Adams has not erupted in more than 1,000 years, it is not considered extinct. It is the second-highest mountain in Washington, after Mount Rainier.
The Cullasaja River is a short river located entirely in Macon County, North Carolina. It is a tributary of the Little Tennessee River into which it flows near the county seat of Franklin.
The Little Tennessee River is a 135-mile (217 km) tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national forests— Chattahoochee, Nantahala, and Cherokee— and provides the southwestern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Tallulah River is a 47.7-mile-long (76.8 km) river in Georgia and North Carolina. It begins in Clay County, North Carolina, near Standing Indian Mountain in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness and flows south into Georgia, crossing the state line into Towns County. The river travels through Rabun County and ends in Habersham County. It cuts through the Tallulah Dome rock formation to form the Tallulah Gorge and its several waterfalls. The Tallulah River intersects with the Chattooga River to form the Tugaloo River at Lake Tugalo in Habersham County. It joins South Carolina's Seneca River at Lake Hartwell to form the Savannah River, which flows southeastward into the Atlantic Ocean.
On March 27, 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major explosive eruption took place on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 am. The eruption, which had a volcanic explosivity index of 5, was the first to occur in the contiguous United States since the much smaller 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. It has often been considered the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history.
The Chattooga River is the main tributary of the Tugaloo River.
Sweetwater Creek is a 45.6-mile-long (73.4 km) stream in the U.S. state of Georgia, west of Atlanta. It begins in southwestern Paulding County, flowing generally eastward into southwestern Cobb County, then turning south into eastern Douglas County. It is a tributary of the Chattahoochee River, and near its end it is the centerpiece of Sweetwater Creek State Park.
A mudflow, also known as mudslide or mud flow, is a form of mass wasting involving fast-moving flow of debris and dirt that has become liquified by the addition of water. Such flows can move at speeds ranging from 3 meters/minute to 5 meters/second. Mudflows contain a significant proportion of clay, which makes them more fluid than debris flows, allowing them to travel farther and across lower slope angles. Both types of flow are generally mixtures of particles with a wide range of sizes, which typically become sorted by size upon deposition.
The 1940 South Carolina hurricane was a Category 2 hurricane that struck the Georgia and South Carolina coast between August 11 and 12, 1940. After forming north of the Leeward Islands, the storm moved west-northwest, moving east of the Bahamas before resuming a west-northwest track towards the Southeastern United States. Hurricane warnings were in effect for the United States coastline near and north of where the center made landfall. A 13-foot storm tide was measured along the South Carolina coast, while over 15 inches (380 mm) of rain fell across northern North Carolina. Significant flooding and landslides struck Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia during the system's slow trek as a weakening tropical storm, and then as an extratropical cyclone, through the Southeast. The landslides which struck North Carolina were considered a once in a century event. Damages relating to the storm totaled $13 million and 50 people perished.
The Toutle River is a 17.2-mile (27.7 km) tributary of the Cowlitz River in the U.S. state of Washington. It rises in two forks merging near Toutle below Mount St. Helens and joins the Cowlitz near Castle Rock, 20 miles (32 km) upstream of the larger river's confluence with the Columbia River.
The Corfu Slide is a geological feature located on the north slope of the Saddle Mountains above Crab Creek near the Columbia River in eastern Washington. It consists of 24 separate slides that cover approximately 18-20 square kilometers and contains a volume of material of about 1 cubic kilometer.
Scaly Mountain is a small unincorporated community along North Carolina Highway 106, southwest of Highlands and northeast of Dillard, Georgia, and nearest to Sky Valley, Georgia, just to the south-southwest. It is in the south-central area of Macon County, North Carolina, United States in Flats Township, close to the Georgia and North Carolina state line. The ZIP Code for Scaly Mountain is 28775.
The Towaliga River is a 52.3-mile-long (84.2 km) tributary of the Ocmulgee River in central Georgia. The Towaliga begins in Henry County and passes through High Falls State Park in northwestern Monroe County, then traverses the county and joins the Ocmulgee near the town of Juliette. The river begins north of Cole Reservoir in Henry County where it is joined by multiple creeks, including Thompson Creek, Troublesome Creek in Spalding County, Long Branch, and Lee Creek to gain size. The river is fairly muddy above High Falls Lake, but it clears once below the falls where most of the river is rock bottomed. This region is about 50 miles (80 km) south of Atlanta and about 35 miles (56 km) north of Macon.
Greenleaf Peak is a mountain in the Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Washington, located on the north side of the Columbia River near Table Mountain, in the Columbia River Gorge. The peak lies within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area near Bonneville Dam. It is 3,424 feet (1,044 m) in elevation. Botanist David Douglas climbed to the summit in September 1825, making this the first recorded mountain ascent in what is now Washington state.
Hurricane Creek is a tributary to the Big Piney Creek, a river in Ozark-St. Francis National Forest in the state of Arkansas, which is a tributary of the Arkansas River and which is, in turn, part of the Mississippi River System. It is managed by the United States Forest Service and categorized as one of the Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States.
35°07′33″N83°17′08″W / 35.12574°N 83.28556°W