Popular North Carolina destinations still working to recover from Hurricane Helene’s impact

Hurricane Helene devastated towns across the south in September, causing record rainfall and triggering historic flooding.

Seven months later, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is still on the ground leading the clean-up effort in western North Carolina – one of those towns being Lake Lure.

A waterpark in the town, which would normally be busy prepping for its peak season, currently has no running water to fill pools or operate watersides as water has been cut off, so that debris can be removed.

Engineer George Minges said there is close to ten feet of debris under the silt and sand in some areas of Lake Lure.

NORTH CAROLINA TOWN DESTROYED BY HURRICANE HELENE HOPING TO WELCOME TOURISTS BACK BY MIDSUMMER 

“It’s this avalanche of soil and trees and rocks and homes. All these came down the river here and were deposited in the lakes,” Minges said.

USACE Col. Brad Morgan said his team has spent months cleaning fragments of storm-damaged trees and other debris from waterways.

“At least 75% of the storm-generated debris from Hurricane Helene had found its way into some type of waterway within Western North Carolina,” Morgan said. “We’ve got some specialized equipment we brought in from the Gulf of America. It’s been out here working since November.”

The USACE has also cleared roadways and is still hauling debris from homes and businesses.

“We probably have 7,000 private property parcels that we’ll clean up. L.A. has about 9,000. So just that one part of this disaster response is equal in the size of that of L.A.,” Morgan said.

HURRICANE HELENE CLEANUP IN EAST TENNESSEE FACES STIFF DEADLINE

Lake Lure Mayor Carol Pritchett said the town relied on contractors for the first three weeks, but the USACE has brought the town much further along.

“With the Army Corps of Engineers, they actually began three weeks after Helene, and it was a God-send. We would not be where we are today, truthfully, without them,” Pritchett said.

Pritchett said the town has a great emergency management plan in place for hurricanes, but the power of Hurricane Helene was unexpected.

“We had a great emergency plan,” Pritchett said. “It was based on and predicted on what the general perspective of what a hurricane has always meant to someone in these western North Carolina mountains … This was just not that hurricane.”

The Army Corps of Engineers has removed more than 5 million cubic yards of debris in western North Carolina since helping with clean-up efforts in the area. Officials said the goal is to remove all debris by July.