It’s not often that a geologist becomes the most famous guy on YouTube, but in the weeks following Tropical Storm Helene, you couldn’t stand in a drinking water supply line around Asheville without someone raving about “the geomodels guy”.
People were desperately trying to understand what had just happened to turn their mountain refuge into an unrecognizable hellscape. Geologist and landslide researcher Phillip Prince thought he might be able to help.
After the storm, the Greenville, S.C.-based geologist was in the Fairview area assessing how landslides affected roads during the storm. He kept hearing people talk about the devastation from debris flows in Craigtown and Garren Creek, trying to get their heads around what happened…