Peeks Creek is a stream

Stream

A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...

 located in Macon County

Macon County, North Carolina

- Geographic features :Of the in Macon County, are federal lands that lie within the Nantahala National Forest and are administered by the United States Forest Service. Of the of USFS land, lie in the Highlands Ranger District and the remaining lie in the Wayah Ranger District...

, North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

. It is a tributary

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 of the Cullasaja River

Cullasaja River

The Cullasaja River is a short river located entirely in Macon County, North Carolina. It is a tributary of the Little Tennessee River , into which it flows near the county seat of Franklin. It originates to the southeast, near Highlands, the county's only other town...

, into which it flows a few miles or kilometers upstream of Franklin

Franklin, North Carolina

Franklin is a town in Franklin Township, Macon County, North Carolina, United States, within the Nantahala National Forest. The population was 3,490 as of the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Macon County. Franklin is an official Appalachian Trail friendly destination...

.

In September 2004, it had a catastrophic

Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...

 flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

 and mudslide, after massive rain

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...

s left over from Hurricane Ivan

Hurricane Ivan

Hurricane Ivan was a large, long-lived, Cape Verde-type hurricane that caused widespread damage in the Caribbean and United States. The cyclone was the ninth named storm, the sixth hurricane and the fourth major hurricane of the active 2004 Atlantic hurricane season...

 struck the same area soaked by former Hurricane Frances

Hurricane Frances

Hurricane Frances was the sixth named storm, the fourth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. The system crossing the open Atlantic during mid to late August, moving to the north of the Lesser Antilles while strengthening. Its outer bands affected Puerto...

 a week before. The slide started on Fishhawk Mountain (also called Big Fish Hawk Mountain), where it continued into the creek. The slide and the water dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

med up behind a bridge

Bridge

A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...

, then broke through, making the creek about 50 yards (45.7 m) or meters wide instead of the normal two or three. The mass of tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

s, boulder

Boulder

In geology, a boulder is a rock with grain size of usually no less than 256 mm diameter. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive....

s, and mud

Mud

Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...

 forced at least fifteen house

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

s off their foundation

Foundation (architecture)

A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...

s, one man riding his home about 500 feet (152.4 m) downstream. Another home was pierced by a tree from end to end, the picture appearing in a local newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

.

The area of the slide is about two miles (3 km) or three kilometers long, with much of the mud and some of the smaller debris

Debris

Debris is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc. The singular form of debris is debris...

 continuing into and down the Cullasaja.

The unincorporated

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 community

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

of Peeks Creek was devastated by the historic event, with at least five people killed.