Did Helene leave permanent geologic damage on Appalachian mountainsides

Helene produced numerous huge debris flows which roared down hollers to claim lives and destroy property. The debris flows which affected Buck Creek in McDowell County are a particularly extreme example. This video talks about what debris flows do to stream channels and the adjacent land as they move downslope. Their behavior explains why they're so dangerous--they collect boulders, soil, and trees on their way downslope, with the entire mass often moving at considerable speed and doing catastrophic damage to anything in its way. Debris flows leave "tracks" on the landscape, and they can last for quite awhile. That said, the forest recovers, and you might even live near an old one and not even know it. This video tries to put debris flows into an overall geologic context while showing what their on-the-ground scouring of the land can look like.