In 1995 Opal ran through the Smoky Mountain area and produced very damaging floods. Most of the roads around Cades Cove were completely washed out, as were many other mountain roads. If I recall, Opal was moving along at about 20 mph (it was still a hurricane when it came through Atlanta in the middle of the night) and still caused massive flooding. Should Ivan stall in that area as it is predicted to, I would imagine the floods in the mountains could be much worse than what happened with Opal.

Good luck to all in the path of this storm.

Brian