Helene: Facing Loss and the Blue Ridge Parkway’s ‘Most Tremendous Challenge’

We are still taking it all in, trying to wrap our minds around the immense devastation caused as Helene ripped through our mountains Friday, Sept. 27. The storm killed more than 200 people across the Southeast. In my home state, floodwaters washed away homes and businesses, high winds decimated forests, and catastrophic mudslides changed the landscape dramatically — damage that North Carolina officials estimate to exceed a record $53 billion. Some people are still unaccounted for.

As a western North Carolinian who weathered the storm, I can attest that the toll here is overwhelming. After more than six hours of pummeling wind and rain, I stepped out of my house and at first could not understand what I was looking at. Nearly 50 trees were down on my wooded two-acre property. The forest across the road was flattened. Where I previously had a narrow, 20-degree view of surrounding ridges, I now had a 180-degree view. My initial, gut-wrenching reaction was, “Oh, the trees!” As someone who loves national parks, one of my next thoughts was, “What about the Parkway?!”

Known as “America’s favorite drive,” the Blue Ridge Parkway winds 469 miles through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina, connecting Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains national parks. It is one of the National Park Service’s most visited sites. For the past 30 years, I’ve been lucky to live a stone’s throw from this landmark and its iconic vistas and hiking trails. This roadway and its surrounding public lands are where I and countless others in western North Carolina go to connect with nature, in solitude or with friends, and rejuvenate. The parkway has always been good for whatever ails me — physically, mentally, emotionally.

A few days after the storm, I learned that our beloved parkway had been ravaged, some sections completely obliterated. According to the National Park Service, the parkway now suffers “significant, and in some cases catastrophic” damage, particularly between milepost 280 near Boone, North Carolina, and the parkway’s southern terminus at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Parkway crews and Park Service employees from around the country arrived in the aftermath to work on initial damage assessments and actions to restore critical communications and re-establish safe access to facilities in need of repair. They reported encountering tens of thousands of trees across the roadway, nearly three dozen rock and mud slides on the North Carolina side and a severely damaged Linville Falls Visitor Center. The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation reported that the parkway faces the “most tremendous challenge since the first crew broke ground on the Parkway in 1935.”

Emergency stabilization efforts are underway, as slides occurred above and below the road and undercut its roadbed in numerous places. The Virginia side suffered less damage, and 198 miles from Shenandoah National Park to near Fancy Gap, Virginia, re-opened Oct. 11. Another 20 miles opened Oct. 23 in the Blowing Rock, North Carolina, area.

Many of us believed that western North Carolina was far enough inland to brave a coastal hurricane. Yet, we find ourselves digging out of the rubble of an unusually powerful storm — and the deadliest to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Even before Helene moved across the Southeast as a tropical storm, a front soaked the region with heavy rainfall. The Park Service closely monitored conditions and prepared for the additional impacts of Helene by closing parts of the parkway, as well as several other parks.

Saturated by 20 inches of rain, the soil provided trees little support against the wind and gave way in the extreme flooding. After the storm, the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway had to be closed. A team of more than 200 Park Service employees from 32 states and the District of Columbia began working with parkway staff in recovery efforts, numbers that would increase by late October. Photos of the parkway’s washed-out roads and uprooted trees reflect the devastation found elsewhere.

But there is more than the physical damage. The Blue Ridge Parkway’s scenic overlooks and outdoor recreation fuel much of the region’s travel and tourism. The parkway’s 16.7 million visitors spent $1.3 billion in communities near the park, which supported 19,159 jobs and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $1.8 billion.

The next step is taking a harder look at how our country addresses climate change… Our national parks and communities deserve to live without fear of massive climate events like Helene.

A typical October would bring in $6 million a day for communities along the parkway from leaf-lookers and other visitors. This year, however, the parkway was completely closed for two weeks of the peak season and much remains inaccessible. Two popular spots, Pisgah Inn at milepost 408 and The Bluff Restaurant at milepost 241, for example, have had to close for the remainder of the year due to loss of visitor access.

Until the remainder of the Blue Ridge Parkway and its trails can reopen, Park Service staff urge the public to stay away — that means motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Hazards both seen and unseen endanger unauthorized users. “We thank the public for their cooperation in respecting closures for their safety and to allow crews to complete their work,” Tracy Swartout, superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, said in a statement.

Impacts on the ‘A.T.’

Although I’ve never been a thru-hiker on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, which runs 2,190 miles from Georgia to Maine, I have enjoyed many day hikes through its southern forests and grassy balds. Known as the “A.T.,” it, too, suffered a severe blow from the storm. Helene was the largest natural disaster — in terms of geographic footprint — to impact the Appalachian Trail in its 100-year history, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. More than a third of the A.T. was initially inaccessible due to washed-out bridges, downed trees and mudslides. Trail communities such as Damascus, Virginia; Erwin, Tennessee; and Hot Springs, North Carolina, were devastated.

Hiking along the southern portion was discouraged as damage assessment got underway, but some sections have since reopened. Because the trail is managed by the Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Appalachian Trail Conservancy and numerous state agencies, some lands it passes through are open while others are closed.

You can check the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s website for updates and guidance.

Other affected parks

Helene affected a dozen parks across five states. The Park Service’s Eastern Incident Management Team has been assisting parks in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina as well as North Carolina with damage assessments and recovery as conditions allow. The team is working in coordination with parks, FEMA and other agencies, the Park Service said.

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park suffered substantial damage on the North Carolina side from flooding and fallen trees. Cataloochee Valley suffered the most significant impacts with damaged roadways and historic structures, as did Balsam Mountain and Big Creek — all popular during October for fall leaf colors. The Big Creek area gives access to several Appalachian Trail trailheads and is primarily accessed by Interstate 40, which is closed because half the highway fell into the Pigeon River. To support access between Tennessee and North Carolina communities, the Park Service reopened US 441/Newfound Gap Road Oct. 1.

• 30 miles from massively flooded Asheville, North Carolina, the Carl Sandburg Home Historic Site remains closed indefinitely, particularly due to hazards caused by downed or falling trees and trail and ground washouts. No major damage occurred to buildings or to museum artifacts, in large part due to the prep done by park staff. The park site’s signature goats are reportedly doing well.

• At Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, which preserves a key gateway to the West in the gap where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia meet, portions of the park have been closed due to hazardous conditions caused by hundreds of fallen trees.

Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton barreled across Florida causing death and destruction Oct. 10. Already damaged by Helene, DeSoto National Memorial on the state’s west coast remained closed as of Oct. 29 due to a damaged visitor center and downed trees, including two of the site’s oldest Gumbo Limbo trees. Canaveral National Seashore on the east coast was also among Florida’s most damaged park sites and remained closed in late October due to dune erosion, boardwalk damage and downed trees. Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia reopened for a short time after Helene caused floods and fallen trees, only to close again in preparation for Hurricane Milton. Two campgrounds reopened, but wilderness sites remain closed until clean-up and assessments are complete.

What’s next for parks

It’s impossible to ignore the influence climate change had on both Helene and Milton. We know for a fact that most of Georgia, western North Carolina, parts of South Carolina, east Tennessee and southwest Virginia faced unprecedented flash flooding from Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Milton’s extreme, rapid intensification had a direct tie to climate change. Already, scientists can point out where a warming planet leads to destruction — and not just in coastal places.

As my mountain community and numerous other small towns take stock of all we’ve lost and the threats to our environmental and public health as a result, we look to decisionmakers to answer the unmistakable need for support. I am deeply grateful for the presence of FEMA, the National Guard and so many nonprofit organizations that have worked on rescue, recovery and the start of clean-up. The next step, though, is taking a harder look at how our country addresses climate change — the greatest threat facing national parks today.

We can’t ignore that these increasingly frequent natural disasters are linked to greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants and industrial facilities. The work of NPCA’s clean air experts has resulted in the reduction of over 1.4 million tons of visibility-impairing pollution; the closure or cleanup of over 150 park-polluting coal plants; and the elimination of 171 million metric tons of climate pollution.

Still, we must do better.

Our national parks and communities deserve to live without fear of massive climate events like Helene. We must ensure they have adequate staffing and funding. One of the greatest examples we have of this is the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022 to provide $700 billion for parks to do exactly that. Nearly $10 million of this has already been dedicated to the Appalachian Trail. and can help us address the greatest threat facing parks today: climate change.

Four weeks after the storm, my neighbors and I are sawing tree trunks, cleaning up and finding hope. Mountain communities are resilient, and the best of our people and communities emerged in the enormous organic support networks that formed to help each other. Our surrounding environment looks and feels completely different now, but we are thankful to be alive and to have each other. There will likely be more events like Helene to come — may we, and our parks, survive those as well.

NPCA’s Lam Ho, Jennifer Errick and Ulla Reeves contributed to this report.