It’s Tye River Tuesday, and in today’s post we’re going into and all the way to the bottom of the Tye River.
Nearly a year ago, on September 27th 2024, the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which a day earlier had deluged western North Carolina, came to central Virginia. It rained plenty in the Blue Ridge Mtns, and that evening the Tye River crested at 7,610 cfs (its highest flow in over 6 years). The next day, I observed the Tye River as the flow was falling but impressive, nonetheless. A good freshet like Helene causes plenty of mayhem in the riparian environment.
In the video (filmed just upstream from Massies Mill) the Tye River is cranking. Notice the concrete pier, it’s the remaining substructure of a long-gone bridge over the Tye River. At the end of the video the modern curved bridge over the Tye River comes into the frame (it carries VA Rt. 56). The old bridge pier served as a nice reference point for my Earth Surface Processes class to measure flow in the Tye River back in October 2022.
W&M geology students measuring flow in the Tye River. Note the old concrete bridge pier on the far side of the river.Less than an hour after I filmed that video, a tree fell into the Tye River and nearly took the old bridge pier with it. I did not witness the tree fall but recorded the aftermath. The tree lay directly across the channel with water pouring over the trunk and branches. The old bridge pier was left in a precarious position tilting towards the Tye.
Top- Moments after a tree fell into the Tye River and in the process tilted the old bridge pier. The trunk of the tree is submerged in the Tye River. Bottom- Fallen tree across the Tye River at lower flow conditions with tilted bridge pier looming on the far side of the Tye River.Two weeks later, the Tye’s waters had fallen, the bridge pier still stood, and the downed tree remained across the river. On a Fall Break camping trip, my colleague’s teen-aged son took it upon himself to make a daredevil film of the Tye River while perched on the trunk of that fallen tree over the river. Check this out.
The river-level view is a cool perspective, but it’s the underwater environment that for me is the showstopper.
In the opening frames the Rt. 56 bridge is down river and the old bridge pier stands in dabbled sunlight on the right.
Still image from video looking down the Tye River and along its western bank.About 5 seconds in the fun begins as the camera is submerged into the Tye River. The underwater noises are cool, the water depth is 50 – 70 centimeters (20 – 28″), and the flow is vigorous. The bed of the Tye River consists of coarse gravel (including cobbles) and sand – this is the river’s bedload. When this video was filmed the bedload was more-or-less sitting still, but during the Helene flood these cobbles would have been rolling and tumbling along the bottom while the coarse-grained sand would have been suspended in the roiling flow.
Tye River bedload consisting of cobbles and coarse sand. Most of the cobbles are various types of granitic rocks eroded from the Blue Ridge Mountains. The sand is a mixture of feldspar and quartz.Earlier in the summer the cobbles along the river bottom were coated in a grimy gray biofilm, but abrasion during the flood caused by the rolling cobbles and moving sand cleaned off the biofilm coatings and brought the color and texture back out in the rocks.
There is also aquatic life, fishies, going about their business in the clear waters of the Tye River.
Still image from the video of the small fish swimming in the Tye River. As the camera emerges once more from the river we glean an interesting perspective on the downed tree.
Still image from the video taken beneath the fallen tree looking towards the tilted bridge pier.I’ll finish with one more still image, this time taken with the camera pointing upstream while going into the Tye River once more. I like how this captures both the over and the going under perspective.
Going down! A still image from the video looking upstream at the surface of the Tye River.I hope this was enjoyable as there is lots to see in the free-flowing Tye River.
Epilogue
The downed tree was a scary hazard for those canoeing or tubing down the Tye River as it formed a nasty strainer across the whole channel. During low water conditions in the spring of 2025, I chained sawed off the canopy of the fallen tree (a Tulip Poplar, Liriodendron tulipfera) and cut part of the trunk into small lengths. Higher flows later in the year washed away the small pieces and flushed the entire trunk about 30 meters downstream to the west bank of the river. But as of late September 2025, the tilted bridge pier remains, still oddly angled over the Tye River – it’ll be interesting to see what happens with time.
Many thanks to James Kaste for filming this epic video!
Great deep dive on the Tye River! I remember that Earth Surface Processes field trip like it was yesterday. I was thinking- I wonder if we could calculate the recurrence interval of a flood event like Hurricane Helene…
I found it very interesting how significantly the Helena flood altered the river’s environment so significantly, but even more surprised how much power floods were capable of; for example, how all the cobble and sand was displaced, the bridge was broken, and many of the surrounding trees were knocked over.
Considering how one tree’s roots were loosened to the point of collapse due to the flooding, how widespread was the destruction surrounding the riverbed? As well, did your team during their date collection encounter obstacles with the saturated ground? I’ve gotten stuck in the mud a few times.
This was a really cool post. It was crazy to see how the hurricane affected the Tye river. It’s amazing how it went from full chaos, with a tree falling, to super calm and chill waters. It’s fascinating how the cobbles were once covered in grim and are now all clean. I hope the fish in there were okay during the hurricane.