Photo courtesy of Gov. Jim Justice
Coal miners from West Virginia moved a mountain in just three days to reopen a 2.7-mi. stretch of U.S. Highway 64 between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock in North Carolina that was washed away by Hurricane Helene.
Blue-collar workers prevailed over bureaucracy in Hurricane Helene-ravaged western North Carolina by rebuilding a highway at breakneck speed on their own terms — allowing residents to finally return home.
Coal miners from West Virginia — whom locals in the Tarheel State mountains have lovingly dubbed the "West Virginia Boys" — moved a mountain in just three days to reopen a 2.7-mi. stretch of U.S. Highway 64 between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock that was washed away by the late September storm.
Chimney Rock residents who fled the hurricane will now be able to return home for the first time within a few days, months earlier than they expected, the New York Post noted in an Oct. 27 article.
"The river swallowed the road," Robin Phillips told the newspaper. "The West Virginia boys have moved the mountains. All of the roads were just gone, until now. It's nothing short of miraculous.
"I haven't been to my house since the flood, but I know very soon I'll be able to," she continued. "Without their help, who knows, it would be months before I could access our house."
Phillips and her husband also run a campground in Chimney Rock, she said. They have not been able to assess the condition of their business since the hurricane roared through Sept. 26-27.
"For a small community like ours without many residents that could easily get overlooked, it's unreal what they're doing," she said of the miners' efforts.
The Post previously spoke to survivors from Chimney Rock who expected to spend a year on the open road until road access to their homes was restored.
On Oct. 25, a Post reporter watched while the miners balanced a bulldozer and two excavators on the banks of the newly-widened Broad River to shift the final 20-ton granite boulder into place to restore access between the two towns.
An official estimate of when a permanent repair to the U.S. 64 roadway between the Henderson County community of Bat Cave, and the town of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County, will be completed is currently unknown.
Volunteer Road Builders Embody 'The American Spirit'
The group of coal miners, from Alpha Metallurgical Resources in Julian, W. Va., spent the fourth week of October in North Carolina rebuilding the heavily-damaged road using different pieces of heavy equipment to both create a drivable road and move debris.
According to Andy Eidson, CEO of Alpha Metallurgical Resources, A&P donated additional equipment and workforce to help the miners.
Among the West Virginia crew were Charles Dunbar, Darrell McCune, Jimmy Wood, Stephen Boone, Jeff Barnhouse, Ben Harris, Derek Butler, Bobby Thomas and Jon Campbell, Lootpress reported.
All of the miners were volunteering their time for the effort, but most did not wish to speak on the record about rebuilding a highway without legal permission.
Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the local sheriff's departments, though, all visited the site but did nothing to stop the unsanctioned rebuilding, according to the Post.
Logan Campbell, another volunteer from Mississippi, said the miners embodied the American spirit.
"To see this many wonderful men, women, all races, different political views — none of that matters at all in these situations," he told the Post. "Weak people don't show up for [stuff] like this, and if they do, they don't last long.
"It's such a heartwarming thing to see amidst all the heartbreak," Campbell added. "It gives you so much hope for the America we all want to believe in and the America we want our children to experience."
He and his friend Dan Lewis had been sleeping in tents for the previous three weeks volunteering to help residents in the North Carolina towns hardest hit by the hurricane.
"Different road crews came in and said, ‘It's not doable. The people who live between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock will be trapped in all winter,'" explained Lewis, who traveled to the rugged region from Oklahoma.
With the hurricane's damage being so horrific and spread over such a vast area of largely mountainous terrain, NCDOT officials and engineers, along with folks from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA have done their best to access as many sites as possible in the last month.
"The Corps of Engineers took a look and said they'd send some surveyors and engineers, the same thing NCDOT said," Lewis continued. "I told them, "You might as well not waste your time because the West Virginia guys will have this road built before you finish your paperwork.
"It's unfathomable what has happened in the past few days."
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