Heartbreaking scenes linger in North Carolina weeks after Hurricane Helene

AccuWeather

Tent communities have popped up in devastated parts of western North Carolina as people work to figure out how to move massive amounts of donations into hard-to-reach mountainous areas.

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00:00Back to North Carolina, where relief efforts continue weeks after Helene's devastating impacts.

00:06Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby joins us right now tonight from Clyde, North Carolina, just west of Asheville.

00:11Aaron, you've been able to drop off the donations you brought with you on this trip.

00:15Have you been able to do that?

00:18Yeah, good evening, guys. I was able to get some of those out earlier this afternoon,

00:22but there's been almost a new problem developing where a lot of the communities that are up here in the mountains,

00:27it's been so slow to get the supplies and stuff up there due to all those road closures and washouts.

00:32They've been only being able to access those with ATV, four wheelers and helicopters.

00:36So they're only able to take so much at a time.

00:38And there's so many donations pouring in that a lot of the folks down here that it's easy to access,

00:42they're getting the proper supplies, which is good news.

00:45But some of the folks that are still trapped and stuck up here in the mountains,

00:48that's where they're running into a lot of problems and having a hard time keeping up those donations.

00:51So tomorrow, I'm going to make my way up into those mountains,

00:54try and coordinate with some of those groups and get some of these warm clothes to those folks up there in the mountain towns

00:59that are going to be dealing with this chilly weather, too, coming up as the winter starts to settle in.

01:04Aaron, what can you tell us about the living conditions there right now?

01:08Yeah, absolutely, guys. Some of the scenes are absolutely heartbreaking.

01:11You know, here in Asheville, they've been doing a pretty good job at cleaning stuff up.

01:16But some of those other communities, unfortunately, people are living out of tents right now.

01:20Their houses were either washed away or completely destroyed or very severely damaged.

01:24And unfortunately, there have been tent communities that have been essentially popping up,

01:29and that is the place that they're calling home for the time being.

01:32All right, Aaron. So we're looking at the video behind you.

01:35You have a couple signs up that say road closed.

01:38Tell us a little bit about the road conditions up there.

01:43Yeah, absolutely, guys. So this is actually the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway,

01:46which is still closed all through the entire state of North Carolina.

01:49It was able to reopen a little bit further north into Virginia.

01:53But here in North Carolina, it is absolutely astronomical how much deforestation occurred during this.

01:59We've been talking a lot about the devastating effects from the flooding,

02:02but this is something that almost got masked over even by me.

02:05It is absolutely surreal to see how many trees were blown down during Hurricane Helene in this area.

02:11And this has been the result of that as they work to clean those up.

02:14There's been multiple landslides that I've come across that have taken out sections of the roadway,

02:18and it's going to be quite some time, I think, before they're able to reopen this roadway.

02:22And this is, again, what's been causing so many of those problems, though.

02:25These trees and these washouts are just really hampering those rescue efforts,

02:29especially up into the mountain communities.

02:31So we're going to have more on that tomorrow.

02:33I'm going to surface some drone video and give that perspective, you know, of what it's like,

02:38because it's supposed to be a fall foliage right now.

02:40This is supposed to be colorful and cheerful, and it's anything but right now.

02:44That's real tough stuff here, Aaron.

02:46I know a lot of people are living in tents.

02:48And, you know, I can't help but ask, just because we know that there are bears near you,

02:53you've mentioned that there's a bear or two within sight of you right now.

02:57Again, their living quarters have also been kind of upended in some form,

03:02probably less so than the human aspect of things.

03:05But have you seen a lot of wildlife out and about?

03:08I know you've been looking off to the side there.

03:10You're good at masking this, but we know that you have a bear near you right now.

03:15Yeah, absolutely.

03:16I mean, this has a whole snowball effect.

03:18You know, all these trees are down.

03:19They knock down their homes.

03:20A lot of the shrubs have been completely dismantled,

03:23and a lot of the wildlife that they typically feast on are now shoved elsewhere.

03:28So they're forced to relocate and make their way up through these mountains

03:31that you might not typically see them.

03:33And it's exactly what happened here.

03:34I was getting ready to set up my live shot, and I looked over,

03:36and a mama bear and two cubs are still over here kind of munching on the grass

03:39that's available and working their way up the mountain.

03:41And a lot of those communities also have to be careful

03:43because some of that food that's being brought up into these communities,

03:46if they aren't properly stored, we're going to run into the issue

03:49where wildlife is going to want to start getting into those.

03:51So that's kind of one of those untalked about dangers

03:54that people can't necessarily forget about.

03:56A lot of those little things add up after a while

03:59in the grand scheme of things in the big picture.

04:01So we've got to keep an eye on that as well.

04:03All right.

04:04Aaron, thank you so much.

04:05Aaron Rigsby reporting live from Clyde, North Carolina.

04:08Thanks for your update, and we'll check in with you here coming up.

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