This is a special Hurricane Helene edition of Shift Key. Our regular programming will resume next week.

Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we are still coming to terms with the scale of its destruction. The storm killed at least 182 people, making it the deadliest cyclone to make landfall in the continental United States since Katrina. From Tampa Bay to Asheville, North Carolina, it caused the worst hurricane-related damage in a century.

Why was Hurricane Helene so bad? Why did it cause such horrible flooding in western North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia? And did climate change have anything to do with its destruction? To answer these questions, Rob and Jesse speak with Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton geoscientist and one of the world’s top experts on hurricanes and climate change. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer is the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins is a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Mentioned: 

Vecchi’s study on how hurricanes will get wetter as the climate warms 

An early attribution study on Hurricane Helene and climate change

The Wall Street Journal: Why Helene Devastated an Area So Far Inland

The Average U.S. Hurricane Kills 7,000 to 11,000 People

In terms of organizations on the ground, we like World Central Kitchen and the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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