Hurricane Helene ravaged the southeastern United States in September 2024 to the point many residents still haven’t recovered. The Weather Channel revisits the catastrophic storm’s path of destruction and network coverage one year later including a Helene: One Year Later special premiering today, Thursday, September 25. The hour sees meteorologists Mike Bettes and Felicia Combs reflect on the historic landfall in Florida’s Big Bend as a powerful Category 4 and subsequent inland flooding before it moved up to devastate parts of North Carolina.

Justin Michaels, national correspondent, will provide live reports September 26 and 27 from Chimney Rock and Bat Cave, North Carolina to cover ongoing rebuilding efforts. Noted hurricane harbinger Jim Cantore was stationed in Tallahassee. Cantore has been that person you don’t want to see in your town or city during hurricane season because it largely means a tropical cyclone was paying a visit. 

No matter how many hurricanes the veteran meteorologist endures in his near 40 years with the network, each storm has its own unique traits. Here Cantore, who also appears on America’s Morning Headquarters, looks back on Helene and provides insight on what it’s like in the field. 

What are your thoughts on these hurricane retrospectives? 

Jim Cantore: I’ve done about 115 of these, so I can tell you firsthand that absolutely every one is different from depressions to storms to full-blown hurricanes to aftermaths. We just got a chance to do Katrina 20 years later. That to me was very interesting because, to me, you’re talking about a full-blown catastrophe where you completely changed an entire state’s coastline. I’m talking about Mississippi. At the same you put 80 percent of the city of New Orleans under water. So, it was interesting to see how both of those areas came back. Now they both flooded for different reasons. Granted, the hurricane was the catalyst, but it was the manmade disaster of the levies that caused the catastrophe in New Orleans. It was the actual hurricane and the right front side of the hurricane and the storm surge that caused the catastrophe in Mississippi. Two different animals, but both devastating in their own rights. 

Mississippi is so far ahead in my opinion in terms of coming back and coming back stronger. Towns like Bay St. Louis and Ocean Springs are weekend getaways now. There are more options than casinos now. The 9th Ward really is not much back at all. I was quite surprised. It’s just a huge difference to where cities are coming back 20 years later. So, Helene, here we are a year later. This is it. This is their livelihood. In some cases, it was the same for Mississippi in terms of gambling. New Orleans,  in terms of the French Quarter, but that really wasn’t touched during Katrina. It’s apples and oranges, but for Helene, this was the livelihood. Asheville was hit extremely hard. Bat Cave, Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, all places we’re going back to and revisit this weekend with our coverage Thursday through Saturday. 

And this comes at a time where we have things starting to pick up in the Atlantic. 

As typically the case when we do these revisiting, it makes us think what else do we have in the tropics? What has really been a lackluster season in terms of impact now looks interesting heading into the weekend with two new Invests (93L and 94L) as of this morning that bear watching off the East Coast. We’ll see what happens. But we’ll have Mike Bettes and Felicia Combs who were featured meteorologists during Helene with Mike at Cedar Key during record storm surge and Felicia was up in Asheville for the flood situation.

It gives them a chance to talk in their own words. And almost in a way to see if they had any PTSD and relive things they remember that aren’t fun going through. We’re out there. We have a mission to accomplish. Sometimes some of the stuff we experience and see stays with us for quite some time. I think it’s helpful for the viewers to see how far they have come. There is so much pride in northern North Carolina and northeastern Tennessee and western South Carolina about how far they’ve come since Helene in just a year’s time. There is still a long way to go. To come back and tell the stories of recovery makes you feel good. That’s the awesome part of that too when we’re covering these sorts of things. 

What do you do to center yourself after going through all these dangerous storms? 

You have to remind yourself you’re on a mission. It’s kind of a military mindset that you have to stay on mission. What’s the mission? That’s me anyway and what I try to relay to my team, producer Steve and cameraman Brad, and if we get an audio person as well. It’s usually three or four of us out there for hurricanes. You have to stay on that mission. Sometimes it’s hard going in because you have longer hours. Then you have to go through the event where adrenaline takes you through and then you have to do the aftermath. The easy thing to do when you’re dragging is think, “dude, you’re going to have a house to go home to. These people do not.” That has to be top of mind. You have to do what you can to bring them the necessary help and talk about the cavalry that is coming. It’s the human element that comes in after storms. 

The humanitarian efforts are so big and counting on after these things. I think really our humanitarian effort has grown exponentially over the years. It’s not about giving money and throwing money here and here. We’re talking groups coming in to cook and rebuild and set up church counseling. It’s at all levels. They are from different states. Like folks in New Orleans, Louisiana will come into North Carolina because people from North Carolina came down to New Orleans after the disasters. It’s this give and take thing. For me personally, accomplishing the mission is the goal and then you go home and detox with your kids. I enjoy just going up to my lake and detoxing with no sound and nobody around and just reliving it, processing it, and putting it in a compartment and putting it away until next time. That’s at least how I do it. 

You’ve been at this a long time. How has social media impacted how you cover storms and weather? 

It’s a blessing and a curse. Sometimes people will put out models that are 10 to 12 days old. People start freaking out, and that makes our job harder because that doesn’t even come up the next three days as a likely scenario. Even this situation this weekend and early next week, we have 6 to 8 days where there are a hundred different scenarios from out to see to Eastern North Carolina to Florida, it could be weak, could get tangled up with a front or blow up on its own or a big deal comes and skims the coast where there is not as much preparation time. Think about all we’ve been watching this year is stuff way out in the Eastern Atlantic where it’s hooked east of Bermuda or fizzled out. Now you have something close to home already, so is it all going to develop? What are the scenarios? Then you throw up these AI models like the European and Google that have actually performed really well. This is a big deal in a short period of time. We’re not going to have 10 days to sit back. We’re going to react pretty quick. Maybe not. But maybe. I’m more heightened right now than the whole season just because it’s so close to home and some things to suggest it could be a much bigger deal than what we thought. 

Even during coverage of Helene one year later, we may have to adjust depending on how this thing winds up. In terms of social media, I think it is a blessing and curse. It also controls what we do in the field. My boss is watching. We like to set up shots that show the story. Like Milton, I was in Punta Gorda. I was in a parking garage that was completely flooded. It had waves moving through it. It was like I was standing in the middle of Charlotte Harbor, which I was not. I had to make sure of each shot because people were questioning it on social media. Then it’s, “Jim, make sure you point out you’re in a parking garage, elevated, not standing in the water with the lights flashing.” We’re actually standing at the edge of the parking lot and have a chance to retreat as the water comes in, which is exactly what we did. It’s almost like you have to acknowledge every little move you make and get micromanaged by social media, which that’s never happened before. That’s a new feature for me, which I didn’t like very much. I have enough to worry about. 

How has it been coming to terms that you’ve become this pop culture figure? 

Personally, I’m more of an under the radar kind of guy. I kind of like it that way. That’s how I enjoy my life, but I’ll accept it. It has been part of my thing. A lot of it came from that commercial and the fact that I’d just had things happen to me in the field that has been very memorable. The college kid in Charleston coming up to me and getting the knee. The thundersnow episodes I’ve had. Certainly, there are also the hurricanes I’ve gone through. Just like any ball player that wants to win, I want the ball when the games are on the line. I want the damn ball. They have given me that opportunity to take it and be in the right place at the right time. 

Now that said, there are some misses. For example, Helene where I wasn’t in a great spot at all. I was in a terrible spot to cover this, and I never went into the aftermath. I can’t speak of just how horrible it was when I first got up there or what it reminded me of or what it was to go through the hurricane on the coast because I was really on the weaker side of the storm. That said, you win some, you lose some. It’s nice to be known as the go-to guy. It’s certainly something I would never turn down the opportunity to do should The Weather Channel give me those opportunities. 

Helene: One Year Later special premiere, September 25, 10/9c, The Weather Channel