North Carolina's recovery six months after Hurricane Helene

AccuWeather

AccuWeather speaks with the mayor of Asheville, North Carolina, Esther Manheimer, on the recovery process that continues six months after Hurricane Helene tore through the region with deadly flooding.

Transcript

00:00It's been six months since Helene made landfall,

00:03later bringing damage to your city.

00:05How is the recovery overall?

00:09Well, we've made great strides

00:11and we've hit a lot of milestones,

00:13reopening some areas of our damaged area of our city.

00:17We're seeing a lot of visitors come back.

00:19This is normally a big tourist town.

00:22You saw the Biltmore Estate in that picture.

00:24They're open for business.

00:25So we're glad to see people coming back into our community

00:29and we're really excited about the spring weather.

00:32But there is a lot of work still to be done.

00:34There are certain areas of the city along the river

00:37are so heavily damaged

00:39and it's gonna take months more to rebuild those areas.

00:45And what are some of the most urgent needs

00:49that are not yet being addressed?

00:53Well, I think we've seen a strong response

00:56from the federal government

00:58and from the Congress to provide funds to the state.

01:01And also we've seen incredible support from the state

01:04as well as I can't leave out all of the partners

01:08and faith-based community members,

01:10all the folks that have helped us out.

01:12But we need to see that work continue to move.

01:17There's some areas of rebuilding

01:18that are just gonna take time

01:20and we just need to methodically move through

01:25all of that work to repair all of that damage.

01:28So at this point in time,

01:31we need the continued focus

01:35from both the federal and state government

01:37to support our recovery.

01:38And so far that's working and moving along fine.

01:44And we know a lot about homes and businesses

01:46need to be rebuilt, but these are people's communities,

01:49things like playgrounds, like libraries.

01:51How is that process going?

01:54So, yeah, I think that's a really good point.

01:58I mean, some of the most heavily damaged areas of the city

02:00included, for example, the city zoo,

02:02which is near the river.

02:03And we just reopened that last week,

02:06but we have soccer fields and playgrounds and swimming pools

02:09and golf courses and greenways and parks

02:13that are all along the river that were affected.

02:15So things that people like to use

02:17and help them enjoy our community.

02:20But in addition, we also saw a lot of businesses

02:24in Asheville that were located along the river,

02:25whether it's a brewery or an art gallery,

02:29some of these were completely destroyed

02:31and it's just gonna be a long process to see the rebuilding.

02:35Now what you're seeing there is our famous drum circle

02:37and don't you worry that it's back in action.

02:39So you can come to Asheville and enjoy it anytime.

02:42I love it.

02:43Yeah, really quickly here in about 30 seconds,

02:45let's talk about the infrastructure, especially roads.

02:48A lot of them are slowly opening up.

02:51Yeah, I mean, hundreds of roads

02:53throughout Western North Carolina were damaged.

02:55You know, when this storm first hit this area

02:59in the immediate aftermath,

03:00we had three of our four highways coming into Asheville

03:03that were knocked out of commission.

03:05So we've made great strides.

03:07The department of transportation has been building,

03:09building, building and rebuilding.

03:11So a majority, I think it's fair to say

03:15of the roads are reopened,

03:16but we still have some major areas,

03:18major roadways that are gonna be,

03:20they're gonna take a lot longer to rebuild.

03:22For example, highway 40 West of Asheville

03:26is one lane in each direction.

03:28And, you know, just to rebuild that section of highway,

03:32which is to the West of the city,

03:34it was a billion dollar project,

03:36just to give you an example.

03:37So pretty significant work still needs to be done.

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