It's now been almost six months since the remnants of Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina. The storm is blamed for at least 106 deaths in the area and tens of billions of dollars worth of damage to roads, buildings, farms, and homes.
In the hours following the storm, the first person we reached out to was former WFAE host and reporter Duncan McFadyen, who lives in Linville near Grandfather Mountain. He joined WFAE鈥檚 Morning Edition host Marshall Terry for an update.
Marshall Terry: Welcome back, Duncan. How are you?
Duncan McFadyen: Good morning, Marshall. I'm doing much better than the last time that we spoke, thankfully. And, it's great to be with you again.
Terry: Right. So when we last spoke, it was chaotic, with roads closed and little to no cellphone service, and we were connected via Starlink. I know cell service has largely been restored, but what about the roads and other infrastructure? How are they now?
McFadyen: Roads, actually, just in the last few weeks started to feel like they're getting back to normal. A major milestone for my part of the area was the reopening of U.S. 221 through Linville Falls and North Cove 鈥� that reconnected us with Marion and I-40, and another route to Asheville and to points southeast and west.
Terry: Now, what about debris? Is there still a lot that needs to be cleaned up?
McFadyen: We've made a lot of strides toward getting the debris out. A few weeks ago, there were mountains of giant trees, and appliances, furniture, mattresses by the sides of designated areas on state highways. I think people's morale was getting a bit reduced from it. In some cases, people were leaving bagged kitchen trash along with the other debris, which caused some problems. I have gotten several notifications from the county that the last day to leave debris, I believe was the last Friday in February. So they are making strides to collect it. It is going, but it's not all gone yet.
Terry: So, what's the feeling like there in Linville and other areas you frequent? Is there any sense of normalcy that's returned? Are businesses open, schools back, tourists back, or is it still too soon for all of that?
McFadyen: The extreme cold weather that we had in January was fantastic for the ski mountains near Banner Elk, which are the primary driver of the tourist industry here. While the roads remain open for tourists, residents, and offices, governments and schools often close with the extreme cold and that slowed the pace of life quite a bit here in January. So, I think people do feel like they're getting back to normal. But everyone I spoke to was shocked by how strong the cold blast was, that hit us in January, and I think that threw people off a bit. It certainly slowed down projects that I was working on and others that I know we're working on as well.
Terry: Now, are you still having people come up and volunteer, send supplies, and all of that, or have aid groups moved on?
McFadyen: Money seems to continue to be flowing, but the physical donations have largely stopped 鈥� and to my knowledge, are being warehoused 鈥� because everyone was so generous in the first weeks after the storm that we simply ran out of space to store everything.
Terry: What do you and, probably, other residents of western North Carolina want listeners to know about that part of the state that they might not know or might surprise them six months on from Helene?
McFadyen: Something that surprised me is how great the environmental devastation is. I grew up in Wilmington and lived through Bertha, Fran, and Floyd. In Wilmington and in the coastal plain, even a major hurricane is not a thousand-year event like the flood that we had, and the ecosystem is, to some extent, designed to recover from that event. That's just not the case up here.
I drove U.S. 221 a couple of days after it reopened last month, and the environmental damage still looks very fresh, and seeing that brings back the memories of experiencing the storm and the confusion and the fear.
