Devastating Helene: 400 roads closed in western NC, 200 people rescued from floods

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hundreds of thousands of people remained without power Saturday in North Carolina in the aftermath of a tropical storm that started as Hurricane Helene.

Helene’s remnants dumped historic levels of rain across the state, leading to devastating flooding in western North Carolina and a web of impassable roads and interstates.

More than 200 people were rescued from flood waters, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office, with North Carolina’s search and rescue teams helped by 19 federal and out-of-state teams.

In a state familiar with the power of hurricanes along its long coast, the level of devastation in North Carolina’s mountains, hundreds of miles inland, is sobering.

Images from newsrooms and social media show houses floating down a muddied French Broad River, submerged cars and the town of Chimney Rock seemingly erased by a mudslide.

Many mountain locations were pelted with rain totaling more than 10 inches, some as much as 29 inches. That brought “catastrophic” flooding, Cooper’s office said, with winds that gusted up to hurricane strength.

According to the Department of Transportation map drivers use to check road conditions, the entire western third of the state appeared closed for business Saturday.

People scramble for necessities

Traveling west from Charlotte, problems got visible around Shelby, where power was spotty and the few places that had it were overrun with customers trying to buy gas, ice and beer.

Terri Morrin had already driven more than 30 miles from her home in Columbus, near Tryon, zooming by the queues of traffic that reached all the way down the exit ramps to the travel lanes of Interstate 85, and decided to skip Shelby. She want further east to Gastonia to fill 13 portable gas tanks for herself, friends and family.

“One neighbor had five trees fall on their house,” Morrin said, and some of the gas she was taking back would fill the chain saws needed to cut those into pieces.

Some of the gas would also power generators to run fans to dry out that neighbor’s house, or someone’s refrigerator or CPAP machine until the power comes back on.

“Duke Power is saying it will be at least a week.”

Governor seeks more help

Gov. Roy Cooper has asked the federal government for a major disaster declaration for 38 North Carolina counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians that would expand access to assistance to governments, some nonprofits, and individuals.

More than 650,000 people remained without power as of Saturday morning and utility crews are responding from across the country for immediate restoration and repair efforts.

There were more than 400 closed roads across the state Saturday, according to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, which expects closures to hinder efforts to help those harmed.

“The entire emergency response effort will be hampered by the damage to roads and power lines,” said NCDOT spokesman Jamie Kritzer.

Those closures include multiple sections of Interstates 40 and 26 around Asheville, the main arteries for traveling through the mountainous region. One section of the eastbound lane of I-40, three miles from the Tennessee border, washed out and fell into the Pigeon River.

“At this point, we’re still advising people not to travel in western North Carolina,” said NCDOT spokesman Jamie Kritzer. “We’re still assessing what the damage looks like but in many spots, the recovery effort will be long term and labor intensive.”

Of the 400 closed roads, Kritzer said 64 were primary roads, the state’s designation for significant roadways, including highways and interstates. Those closures could impact recovery efforts.

Water supply down, outages widespread

In Buncombe County, I-40 and I-26 were impassable in multiple locations, emergency officials said at a news conference Saturday morning.

A boil-water advisory continues for Asheville. The county also has no cellular coverage, with no estimated restoration time.

Jessica O’Brien has lived in the Asheville area for 25 years, and what she saw this week was “much worse” than the flooding she saw in 2004 after Hurricane Frances, she said.

She doesn’t expect to get running water back until next week. And when her boss in another state questioned why she couldn’t open the store she manages, she drove to Marshall to prove a point.

She took videos and pictures — the courthouse flooded, businesses flooded, everything flooded.

“It was fully engulfed,” she said.

As of Saturday morning, around 400,000 in North Carolina were still without power, according to Duke Energy, with most of those outages occurring in the western region.

Most of the outages have no timeline for when power will be restored, as the extend of the damage is still being assessed, according to the Duke Energy outage map.

In one of Friday’s most harrowing moments in western North Carolina, an alert was sent out Friday afternoon that the Lake Lure Dam in Rutherford County was set to fail at any moment, with residents below the 100 foot structure ordered to evacuate.

Hours later the Lake Lure Dam continued to hold.

Water levels throughout the Western region reached historic levels of flooding. The Pigeon River crested at more than 25 feet near the Canton station.

People living through the chaos on Saturday were doing what they could to cope.

In the town of Hot Springs, where the swollen French Broad river had closed the Bridge Street Bridge, residents met at Sara Joe’s Gas Station Saturday morning to try and figure out a way around the road closures. The gas station had posted on its Facebook page Friday afternoon that there was free ice in the cooler and that people could take some if they needed it.

A few hours after that message the French Broad River rose to more than 20 feet, reaching major flood level, according to a water data station in Hot Springs. On Saturday afternoon, the river remained at 15 feet deep.

At the Asheville station, the French Broad peaked at 24.67 feet Friday evening, a level surpassing the Great Flood of 1916, which the city says crested at 21 feet and killed 80 people.