Photo courtesy of Blake Koeval
In northeast Tennessee, I-26, a north-south freeway that connects Johnson City, Tenn. with Asheville, N.C., was closed in the Unicoi County community of Erwin after its two bridges over the Nolichucky River were destroyed by floodwaters.
More than a week after the remnants of Hurricane Helene plowed ashore on Florida's Gulf Coast and drew a bead on Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, causing catastrophic damages and killing more than 200 people, the task of recovery and rebuilding is continuing apace.
When a diminished Helene, once a Category 4 storm, struck the southern Appalachian Mountains, those that experienced its onslaught in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee — the two states impacted most by the disaster — would be hard-pressed to believe that a weakened hurricane was upon them.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
Indeed, high winds roared through the region Sept. 26 to 27, sending trees and utility poles crashing down onto roadways and homes. Tens of thousands of people were left without power, and, although many have since had their electricity restored, getting everyone reconnected again will take weeks, if not months.
But it was the massive amounts of rain that fell across the two southeast states that caused the most death and destruction.
In the shadow of North Carolina's 6,684-ft. Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River, the Yancey County community of Busick recorded an incredible 30.78 in. of rain, the state's highest total. The mountain also experienced wind gusts of 106 mph.
The heavy rainfall throughout the Appalachians flowed off the mountains into the region's numerous deep valleys – natural funnels that transformed every brook, creek and river into bloated, swift-moving floodwaters that carried away everything in their path.
As a result, countless roadways and bridges collapsed in the two-state region, from one-lane dirt roads leading onto homeowners' properties to interstate highways. Additionally, several dams saw light to moderate damage, but, fortuitously, none of the area's critical barriers were breached.
Because so many roads and bridges were destroyed, first responders had difficulty reaching the multitude of area residents stranded without power, clean water and phone service.
Much of the nation's focus has been on the destruction in the Buncombe County town of Asheville, N.C., the largest in the region. The historic arts and resort city of 95,000 residents, along with its surrounding communities, witnessed unprecedented damage from Helene.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
Like many communities, Asheville's water system also was severely damaged due to the storm, and the county's own water supplies were on the other side of the flooded Swannanoa River, away from where most of the 270,000 people in Buncombe County live, local officials told the Associated Press.
But other smaller towns and villages nestled in the state's Blue Ridge Mountains, from Sparta and Boone in the north to Hendersonville and Chimney Rock Village on the south end, also saw record amounts of rain, flooding and destruction.
The 100-year storm is being compared to a July 1916 flood that ravaged the very same mountains and valleys after a pair of hurricanes moved through the area only five days apart, dumping more than 22 in. of rain, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported Oct. 7.
At that time, however, the early 20th century backwoods towns of North Carolina and Tennessee were much more isolated than today and had none of the well-engineered highways, bridges and dams that residents and tourists rely on in 2024.
Still, officials in the two-state region were surprised at the level of destruction that Helene brought to the mountains and foothills and saw it as another example of climate change causing weather to run amok.
Widespread Damage Presents Daunting Prospect
Shortly after the hurricane passed, officials in each of the affected states fanned out in their areas to assess the damage and begin preparations for the cleanup and rebuilding effort.
They quickly realized that they had a daunting task ahead of them, with government leaders in both North Carolina and Tennessee warning that recovering from the widespread loss of homes, property and infrastructure would be lengthy, difficult and expensive.
Photo courtesy of Blake Koeval
To help facilitate the rebuilding efforts, by Oct. 6, President Biden had sent a total of more than $137 million in federal disaster relief funds to those southeast states impacted by Helene.
As of Oct. 7, David Uchiyama, spokesperson of the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) in Asheville, noted that his agency had dispatched approximately 2,050 of its personnel to respond to the storm's aftermath, including 1,475 from the affected divisions (11 to 14), which oversee the entire western third of the state.
Those folks brought with them more than 1,100 pieces of heavy equipment to the region, including dump trucks, backhoes, loaders and graders, among other machines, he added, as well as more than 1,000 chainsaws and more than 8,000 barricades and signs.
"Communications are steadily improving in the affected areas, which is helping with our efforts and gives us a clearer picture of the number of impacted roads and bridges," Uchiyama explained. "As a result, as of [Oct. 6], we've identified over 4,100 damage sites, with more than 350 bridge sites and over 450 culvert sites. We're currently reporting about 650 road closures — 106 to primary routes — and we've already determined about 100 bridges will require replacement. That number is likely to go up."
As could be expected, most of the closures are in areas where roadways are impassable due to flooding, land/rockslides, downed power lines, pipe failures and fallen trees, Uchiyama said.
Although many major repair efforts are ahead for North Carolina, dozens of smaller ones will be able to be carried out sooner rather than later.
Such was the case on N.C. Highway 105, a key travel route for tourists and residents between the town of Boone in Watauga County and scenic Grandfather Mountain in Avery County. Unrelenting rain buckled and collapsed a short section of the roadway west of Boone.
As luck would have it, though, since 2022, crews from Wright Brothers Construction Co., in Charleston, Tenn., were already working nearby on a $95 million effort to replace a bridge over the Watauga River and make improvements to the highway.
The company was quickly mobilized to repair and pave the damaged roadway within just a couple of days, according to the Boone Department of Public Works.
On Oct. 1, NCDOT contacted Jason Ball, the owner of Appalachian Siteworks Inc. (ASI) in Waynesville, west of Asheville, to help assess damage along N.C. 9 leading to the devastated town of Chimney Rock Village and Lake Lure in Rutherford County.
Once an evaluation is completed, Ball said that ASI would begin rehabilitating the highway for safe travel.
"We are not sure what damage was done to it just yet," he explained Oct. 3, "so that's what we will be determining tomorrow. I expect we will probably have 40 to 50 people working at the site. We'll be taking track hoes, dozers, skid steers and loaders with us."
Ball said that ASI has also gotten under way on projects for Duke Energy at several utility-related sites hit hard by Helene.
Photo courtesy of Blake Koeval
"Where Duke's substations are flooded or destroyed, we're going in and making new mobile pads for mobile substations to be built in Asheville, and the communities of Biltmore Village, Spruce Pine, and Newfound," he noted. "We are also going to locations where the high transmission lines have been knocked down by falling trees and wind to cut new roads and make access pads to support those structures and power poles."
Most of the repair and rebuilding work ASI has lined up in response to the storm will likely take months to complete, according to Ball.
"These repair jobs just about fill our capacities right now," he said. "In the future, though, I would say that there will be a need for us to do a lot of concrete work on damaged bridges."
And, near the McDowell County town of Old Fort, east of Asheville in the foothills, a landslide on Interstate 40 blocked the highway with tons of mud and debris when a steep hillside gave way to the rain.
But by early on Sept. 27, NCDOT already had its crews on site to clear the slide. They were able to complete the job on Oct. 1 so that emergency personnel and much needed supplies could reach communities in the higher elevations.
Interstate 40 Collapses Near N.C.-Tenn. State Line
A much more vexing problem occurred further west on I-40, however, both for the region and the nation.
Almost 50 mi. west of Asheville near the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, a large section of the interstate's two eastbound lanes broke off and fell into the raging Pigeon River due to Helene dumping upwards of 2 ft. of rain on the corridor.
With high mountains on either side of the highway, the site is in a particularly rugged part of the region.
A Sept. 27 mudslide on the North Carolina side resulted in the highway collapse, according to Kelse Edwards, communications director of NCDOT. The state agency, she said, partnered with the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) to assess the extent of the damage on their respective sides of the major freeway.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
Interstate 40 is a key artery for transporting people and commercial goods across the entire southern half of the country. The possibility exists that the collapse will close the highway at the border for as long as a year to allow crews to completely repair and strengthen it.
On Oct. 5, TDOT announced that a stretch of I-40 could reopen to traffic in two weeks' time, but only within Tennessee.
According to agency spokesperson Mark Nagi, TDOT is working to have I-40 open for motorists from the state line to Hartford Road at mile marker 447 sometime around Oct. 19. Traffic, he noted, will be limited to one lane in each direction in what are normally the westbound lanes.
However, the highway will remain closed between Tennessee and North Carolina, Nagi added.
For now, I-40 in Tennessee remains closed to westbound traffic up until mile marker 447 and eastbound traffic until mile marker 440.
The closure will undoubtedly have a major impact on how cars and trucks travel across the Southeast.
Drivers that would normally take I-40 to go from one state to the other will need to plan for a more roundabout trip by accessing I-81 through Virginia to I-77 or I-85 through Atlanta to I-75.
"[Interstate 40] is a clear priority," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement to Charlotte's WCNC-TV on Oct. 2. "There are also still parts of I-26 [in Tennessee] that are compromised, although I was pleased to see how much of that got back up and running by yesterday. It's difficult to overstate how profound and widespread the damage is [in North Carolina]."
The site of the I-40 road failure is well-known to engineers at NCDOT as well as their counterparts in Tennessee due to dozens of landslides and rockfalls along the highway since it was first opened almost 50 years ago.
Buttigieg told the Charlotte news outlet that the federal government's role is now ensuring money is not a barrier for those entities rebuilding major highways, such as I-40.
Any timeline for the effort will be dictated by safety, according to Buttigieg, who said it is important to be cautious and accurate when making promises about restoring the highways in both western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.
"We would like for every road to be fully repaired yesterday," he said. "But I want to be very transparent and honest here. [Most of this damage] won't be fixed overnight. There are a lot of steps that we're going to have to work through to make sure that we're building back safely."
Nolichucky River's I-26 Bridges Destroyed in Erwin, Tenn.
In northeast Tennessee, I-26, a north-south freeway that connects Johnson City, Tenn., with Asheville, also was closed in the Unicoi County community of Erwin after its two bridges over the Nolichucky River were destroyed by floodwaters.
Photo courtesy of Tennessee Valley Authority
The town, 15 mi. south of Johnson City, was nearly engulfed by the high waters and took the worst of the storm in that part of the Volunteer State.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee made an on-site visit to the crumpled I-26 bridges in Erwin on Oct. 1, along with a survey of damage in Carter County.
Shortly after his visit, TDOT said that I-26 would be closed at least through October in the Erwin area. A timetable for its demolition, removal, and rebuilding has not yet been announced by the agency.
Lee also traveled to Greene and Cocke counties, two more hard hit regions in east Tennessee, to get an idea of the severity of the storm damage and meet with survivors, first responders and volunteers.
In all, TDOT noted that besides the I-26 bridges in Unicoi County, three other highway spans over the Nolichucky also were destroyed: on Tennessee Highway 81 and Tenn. 353, both in Washington County; and along Tenn. 107 in Greene County.
Photo courtesy of TDOT
Another 13 state bridges were initially closed to traffic following the storm, but most of those have now been reopened, according to a news release.
The agency responded quickly to the disaster by mobilizing 400 of its team members from all regions of Tennessee to the hardest hit areas in the east. Among them were maintenance personnel as well as Geotech, survey, bridge inspection, design, project development and right of way specialists.
In addition, repairs and/or debris removal were carried out on 47 state highways in Tennessee, with much of that work now complete.
A lot of the damage assessment by TDOT also has been wrapped up, and the state has begun executing contracts to private companies for construction, repairs and additional debris hauls.
Blue Ridge Parkway Not Spared Storm's Ravages
The National Park Service (NPS) also sent crews to assess the damage on the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) in North Carolina and Virginia from the hurricane's rampage. To do so, the agency closed the scenic route's entire 469-mi. length through both states during the first week of October.
The BRP is the park service's most visited attraction, and its closure during the traditional peak month for viewing the Appalachian range's vibrant and colorful autumn leaves will disappoint many tourists.
Photo courtesy of TDOT
NPS noted that it had deployed its Eastern Incident Management Team, which it said, "brings specialized skills and resources to support the parkway with employee emergency needs, emergency stabilization of affected park resources, and damage assessments," according to an Oct. 3 news release.
It added that as of that date, 250 NPS employees from 32 states and the District of Columbia were working with BRP staff in the recovery efforts.
Although the agency is still analyzing the storm's impact on the parkway, NPS revealed that initial data discovered "significant, and in some cases catastrophic, damage … occurred along the parkway, particularly from milepost 280, east of Boone, to milepost 469" at the route's southern terminus at U.S. 441 near Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In the coming weeks, NPS said its assessment teams will determine the full extent of the damage before announcing the timeline and cost estimates for repairs.
A projected reopening date of any section of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina has not yet been established.
The story is a little different in Virginia, where damage assessments and the clearing of debris from the road are nearing completion, which will allow for a phased reopening there in the coming days and weeks. CEG
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.
Read more from Eric Olson here.
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