HOT SPRINGS — They were picking up the pieces that didn’t wash away this week in this small mountain town riven by the French Broad River beneath the fall-smattered foliage of high rocky ridges whose beauty belied the bad things that happened below.

The old ruins at the eponymous spa stood among new ruins, both bracketed and buried by sand and trashed hot tubs and now-absurd privacy fences and shadows of the place where lovers soaked and quarreled and made up and made love.

Upriver and downriver from the spa, not far from a place called Hurricane, people worked along Bridge Street to restore lifetimes and livelihoods that had been wrecked in a flash during the Great Flood of 2024, itself birthed from a storm turbocharged by bathwater oceans and other sinister features of climate change. Science and data and computer models may agree we are now forever stalked by stronger storms, but the pain evident all the way down the towering French Broad drainage into the fertile, flooded flats of the Tennessee Valley is proof enough.

One of the only remaining, if not the only remaining, natural hot-spring tubs at Hot Springs Resort and Spa following the Great Flood of 2024 triggered by Hurricane Helene.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

It may take months or years for life in the Southern Appalachians to return to normal following Hurricane Helene, but the massive relief operation under way in six states was slowly bringing at least some basic services back to the hardest-hit areas as of Friday morning, two weeks after epic flooding stretched from North Carolina to Tennessee and Georgia.

In Western North Carolina, just under 47,000 customers remained without electricity.

In Asheville and the rest of Buncombe County, an estimated 46,000 or 31 percent of households were still without power, officials said, which was a vast improvement over the 149,000 who lost power during the height of the disaster, which also brought hurricane-force winds to parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.

Duke Energy, which is the largest power provider in Western North Carolina, predicted that many of those customers will have power restored by next week but cautioned that some may be without electricity for an unknown span of time even as the weather was forecast to drop into the 30s after nightfall.

“In western N.C., customers whose properties are inaccessible or not able to receive power may be without electricity for an extended period of time as we work alongside government agencies to rebuild critical infrastructure,” the utility posted on its website. “For all other customers in the heavily impacted areas, we anticipate restoring power within a week.”

More than half of the 238 confirmed Helene-related deaths were in North Carolina, and state legislators on Wednesday finished an initial $273 million relief package to help spur recovery, describing it as a down payment on aid and a way to help hard-hit counties gain more flexibility in holding elections already underway, according to the Associated Press. 

“I want to thank you for putting your first seeds into the ground,” said Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican from Mitchell County, who described the local water system as “unsalvageable” and predicted it will take years to replace.

“We’ve never seen devastation like this before.”

Asheville’s water system was heavily damaged, and a Boil Water advisory is in place for much of the western part of the state. Buncombe County officials have said that restoring service to the full system might take weeks.

The Asheville-Buncombe Water Authority released this image Oct. 10 of a successful reconnection of a major water line to a city reservoir.

In the meantime, distribution sites providing one-day supplies of food and drinking water for households have been opened across the region.

Food and water distribution sites in Asheville have also begun providing non-potable or “gray” water, which can be used for flushing toilets. Residents were told they should bring their own containers for gray water.

The bill passed Wednesday also contained rule changes for the upcoming election and addressed everything from the salaries of teachers and school cafeteria workers to the waiving of fees for the issuance of photo IDs.

On the Tennessee side of the mountains, flood damage to wastewater treatment plants in Hamblen, Johnson and Unicoi counties meant that Boil Water advisories remained in effect for affected communities.

The future of Interstate 40 over the mountains between Tennessee and North Carolina seemed very much in doubt two weeks after floods caused by Hurricane Helene effectively washed part of it into the Pigeon River, but officials announced their initial plans to at least stabilize what’s left.

They had no timetable for when the interstate — which is normally the busiest route between the two states —  might reopen, saying only that it will be shut down for the foreseeable future. 

“Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge is closed indefinitely,” said David Uchiyama, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Transportation, in a phone interview.

According to Uchiyama, the eastbound lanes of I-40 collapsed into the Pigeon River during the historic floods that tore apart the Southern Appalachians in the wake of Hurricane Helene. 

The eastbound half of the interstate slid into the gorge at several locations along a four-mile stretch of roadway starting at the state line, he explained.

Last weekend, two contractors — Wright Brothers Construction and GeoStabilization International — were awarded a $10 million contract to drive steel bars into the soil under the remaining westbound lanes to keep them from collapsing. The contract includes incentives for the contractors if the work is finished by Jan. 4, 2025.

“This temporary shoring operation will save the remainder of westbound lanes in sections where eastbound lanes slid into the river gorge,” said Uchiyama. “Around the time this operation concludes, plans for a larger and complete repair will be in progress.”

When asked directly if a final decision has been made about whether the interstate will be rebuilt in its original location in the future, Uchiyama simply reiterated that any and all plans regarding the project will be under consideration as of early next year. 

To make matters even worse for motorists, Interstate 26 in Tennessee also remains closed after the flooding Sept. 27 knocked down two bridges over the Nolichucky River in Unicoi County.

The Appalachian Trail passes through the center of Hot Springs. A symbiotic outdoor-centered economy powered this small town; now-dusty Bridge Street, while a flurry of activity, is largely devoid of commerce as business owners try to repair or consider the future of their enterprises, from rafting outfitters to the hospitality industry. Many livelihoods were impacted by Helene, up and down the Southern Appalachians.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Jeanne Gentry took a break to talk in the gutted remains of her family’s hardware store, the oldest business in Hot Springs. She and her husband, Keith, have been working nonstop since the French Broad flowed through the old-fashioned, centering staple of this remote town. The sewer system was destroyed, and there is odor in the air that is evidence of its absence.It is but one more challenge left behind on the banks of the indifferent river.

People, she said, won’t ever, ever let her quit, won’t let the downtown Hot Springs institution be lost to rustic memory. So she won’t quit. She won’t give up.  And she is overwhelmed by the support she and her husband have received in the quest to resurrect the wounded store, dearth of flood insurance be damned. She speaks of good Americans bound by adversity and a reflexive need to help each other. She speaks of better angels.

“We have a lot of really great people, and that’s just being an American.I know that sounds cliche or dumb, but, I mean, that is just kind of what it is.”

She senses and sees more than patriots: “I see God here, so everyone’s an angel.”

Jerry Chandler worked with others in the now-dusty store wrecked by the river — with a floor now concave from the weight of water and the inventory it piled without care or thought — before a wall of cubes housing hardware of every description, sorting and cleaning the contents.

He grew up in Hot Springs; but usually hangs his hat in Charlotte these days.

“When the mountains call, you go home,” Chandler said.

Rebuild or reroute Interstate 40?

Tennessee Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Nagi has said there’s no timeline for either rebuilding the bridges or reopening the affected roadway. 

The question as to whether I-40, which carried an average of 26,000 vehicles a day, can or should be rebuilt at all has been raised by numerous people since the storm, including Newport resident Bobby Seay and long-time Pigeon River advocate.

“The road’s eroded all the way back under the westbound lanes,” Seay said. “How do you fill that in? The mountain’s gone …. And do you even want to put it back there and have this all happen again in 20 years? There’s talk it could be re-routed through Hot Springs and Marshall. It’s insane.”

Seay, who was born in the rural Cocke County community of Del Rio in 1950 and now lives in Newport, has spent most of his life fighting for the health of the Pigeon River. 

As one of the founding members of the Dead Pigeon River Council — an environmental group that waged a long-running battle over pollution dumped into the Pigeon River by the Champion International paper mill in Canton, N.C. — Seay is widely considered an authority on the river’s health and history.

Seay is deeply concerned not only by what’s happened since Hurricane Helene caused unprecedented flooding in the region but also by what the future may hold.

Just before downtown Newport began to flood on Sept. 27,  Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis announced that the Walters Dam upstream near Canton above Waterville had collapsed. As a result of the alarm, residents fled, businesses closed and inmates from the county jail were moved under armed guard to Sevier and Jefferson counties.

Although it was soon determined the purported dam collapse was, in fact, a false report, Mathis’s evacuation orders nevertheless ended up preventing a human disaster when downtown Newport was overwhelmed by several feet of rushing water, Seay recounted. 

“He probably saved some lives,” Seay said.  “We are so fortunate in this county that we didn’t (sustain) a lot more loss of life.”

Two people have been confirmed dead in Cocke County related to the storm and at least one person remains missing. 

Although the paper mill upstream closed last year, Seay’s deepest concern is that it’s toxic legacy may have been dramatically amplified by the flooding. 

He explained that there was nearly 40 feet of toxic sludge had accumulated underwater at the base of the Waterville Dam over the many decades that effluent from the mill was dumped into the Pigeon River.

Seay explained that he’d been told years ago by officials from the Environmental Protection Agency that there was no danger posed by the accumulated sludge unless “we had a 500-year flood” that stirred up the sediment and sent it downriver.

The flooding caused by Helene, however, has been characterized by TVA as a 5,000-year flood that shattered nearly every historical record.

“The flood gates at Waterville Dam were fully open and the water still topped it,” he said. “My god, what happened to all of that dioxin? Did it flood over the whole valley? All of that toxicity probably went into Douglas Lake.”

Far downriver from Hot Springs, all the way through the immense French Broad watershed into Tennessee through communities called Horseshoe and Temo and Wolf Creek, in Del Rio, hurt was also heaped deep on the side of the irrepressible river.

Work went on as done everywhere these days on the railroad that traced the river, no match for the crunching creep that became full roar.

The line was a siren for life for many in Del Rio, for beyond there was higher ground. So they got to the tracks as best they could, singly or coupled with kin as they fled the astonishing spectacle lapping at their lives.

Jennifer Rucker recalled how she swam entirely over the tracks by Del Rio Baptist Church, helped to safety by a man who was simultaneously assisting his family. Mud-caked pews are stacked outside the church; it was easy to cast aside things so clearly incapable of earthly redemption. A waterline reaches halfway up the dirty windows. The honey farm nearby is wrecked. Sodden lumber and plywood lays askew at a nearby lumber yard, laying flush with the river like virtually everything else in this devastated community.

Two sisters talk outside the church about selflessness and unselfishly unload a list of contacts for a reporter to call though he’ll never be able to because there are just so many people, so many sources, so many stories that have now collected and come to a head here in the midst of immense loss.

The women don’t want to share their names; they don’t want to take any credit for anything they’ve done, any aid they’ve delivered. They do it for God.

Back up the mountain toward Hot Springs, at the head of a stairwell of despair, a kingfisher flew down the French Broad River.

Recovery and cleanup efforts accelerate

The Swannanoa River east of Asheville destroyed countless homes and businesses in the Swannanoa and Black Mountain communities when it rose to historic levels during Tropical Storm Helene. Thousands remain without electricity and water as massive recovery efforts continue nearly two weeks after the Sept. 27 flood.  Bill Rhodes Photo

Operation Airdrop offers relief from above; national park grapples with illegal truckers; whitewater tourism shattered in East Tennessee; weather service meteorologists recall historic night of destruction

 KNOXVILLE — It’s too early to be certain, but experts believe that Hurricane Helene could end up being the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history, surpassing even 2005’s devastating Hurricane Katrina.

Helene is already ranked as the second-deadliest U.S, disaster in this century, with at least 231 people confirmed dead in six states as of Tuesday morning.

The hardest-hit areas have been in the Southern Appalachians, especially the mountain communities of Western North Carolina and upper East Tennessee. 

Although more than 14,000 soldiers and federal personnel have been deployed to the mountains by President Joe Biden, it could be months before daily life returns to a semblance of normal. 

For the past 19 years, Hurricane Katrina has been considered as the most expensive disaster to ever strike the U.S., having caused an estimated $160 billion worth of damage to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

While initial estimates of Hurricane Helene’s destruction ranged from $34 billion to a little more than $100 billion, the full extent of the damage has become more clear with each passing day. AccuWeather, for instance, has revised its estimate of total losses to between $225 billion and $250 billion.

“This update from AccuWeather experts accounts for new and additional verified information, including the horrific loss of life, the immediate and long-term costs of healthcare for storm survivors and injured first responders, extended power outages, major infrastructure reconstruction projects for utilities, highways, bridges and railroad tracks, major business and travel disruptions, as well as long-term losses to tourism, technology, renewable energy and other industries across the southern Appalachians and southeastern U.S.,” said the commercial forecasting company on its website.

Many people in the affected areas remained without power or clean water, which meant that huge tonnages of food, potable water and other necessities were being given away at distribution points in almost every city, town or zip code in Western North Carolina.

Every pound of supplies was being brought into most area by four-wheel drive vehicle, airplane, helicopter or even mule. Cell phone and internet service remained spotty, and for many people the only reliable sources of information were local radio stations. 

In the region’s most populous metropolitan area, the four-county metropolitan area centered around the city of Asheville and Buncombe County, the official death toll remained at 72 on Monday but was believed to be higher since the medical examiner was forced to stop updating the number until a state support team arrives, Buncombe spokesperson Lillian Govus told CNN.

Hundreds of country residents remain missing or stranded  

Asheville Police Chief Mike Lamb said during a Monday briefing that his officers found 336 missing men, women  and children but 394 people were still technically missing. Lamb said the agency was working 60 active missing persons cases, including 20 who were homeless before the storm.

The Buncombe County Family Assistance Center helped coordinate thousands of volunteers who fanned out across the region to conduct wellness check on behalf of those who couldn’t contact or physically visit their loved ones.

“At a time when power and cell service were completely down, the Center was able to provide critically needed supplies and invaluable peace of mind to over 15,000 households and their extended families,” according to a press release from the county Register of Deeds office, which operates the center.

Officials said their primary focus was trying to restore essential infrastructure and services such as power, water and roads

More than 125,000 customers were still without power in North Carolina as of Monday evening, according to poweroutage.us.

The lack of clean running water forced many residents to turn to local creeks and waterways. Even though the water was clearly unsafe to drink, people were using it for tasks like bathing, flushing their toilets and washing clothes. 

Officials, however, strongly urged them to avoid waterways until the Environmental Protection Agency has a chance to assess the public health impact.

Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder said the county was working with Asheville officials to find a source of non-potable water for their citizens.

On the Tennessee side of the mountains, life hasn’t returned to normal for many people, but at least the power was back on for all but approximately 400 customers, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Clean water, on the other hand, was a bit harder to find for many residents of Cocke, Unicoi, Hanblen and Johnson counties.

Among the many facilities that took a beating during the storm were those communities’ wastewater treatment plants, triggering boil-water advisories for those who were lucky enough to have running water, said TEMA officials. 

The damage to the treatment plants also prompted the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to advise everyone to avoid “all contact” with any bodies of water affected by the flooding, including the Nolichucky, French Broad, Pigeon, Doe and Watauga river watersheds.

“Several wastewater treatment plants have been compromised and are temporarily unable to completely treat effluent before it enters receiving waters,” said a statement posted on TDEC’s website. “In addition, sewer line crossings may have been severed or damaged allowing raw sewage to enter streams, and individual septic systems may be compromised across the region.”

According to TDEC Commissioner David Salyers, floodwaters should be assumed to potentially carry bacteria and avoided whenever possible. If someone does come into contact with the water, they are urged to wash with clean water and soap as soon as possible.

The Nolichucky River dam held up against record flooding from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, but communities downstream were devastated nonetheless.  Carol Krispin

HARTFORD — The death toll from Hurricane Helene climbed to at least 213 people in six states as communities across Southern Appalachia continued to dig out, clean up and mourn losses a week after the worst flooding to hit the region in the modern era.

Meanwhile, weather forecasters are watching a developing tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico that could hit the central Florida peninsula as a major hurricane, Milton, on Wednesday. Current forecast tracks show it moving northeastward roughly parallel to the southeastern Atlantic coast after passing over Florida. Any significant jog to the north or west could cause heavy rain to overspread areas recovering from the deluge delivered last week by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. This especially applies to the Florida panhandle, where Helene roared ashore, and southeast Georgia, including the Savannah River Basin.

The mountains of North Carolina remained the hardest-hit area from the Sept. 27 deluge, with 108 people having lost their lives statewide. In Asheville alone, the number of dead stood at 72 with nearly 200 still missing.

A man offers a relieved laugh after catching a rescue throw rope during catastrophic flooding in the Swannanoa Valley east of Asheville on Sept. 27.  Bill Rhodes Photo

In Tennessee, officials said that four people were killed in Unicoi County; two in Cocke County; two in Washington County; and one each in Greene, Johnson and Knox counties. 

The dead included a man and his dog who died after the vessel he launched on the Nolichucky River in Greene County capsized, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. The man’s girlfriend survived.

There was some good news on the western side of the mountains on Thursday and Friday, however, as heroic round-the-clock efforts to restore power reduced the number of outages to less than a thousand in East Tennessee. 

Also, a regional inspection of 310 state bridges showed that only five of them had been destroyed, and 25 of 47 state routes had been repaired and reopened, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA). 

With much of the region’s mountain residents still stranded without access to fresh water, grocery stores or gasoline, the only thing keeping millions of people from illness or death is one of the largest disaster relief efforts in American history. 

Unable to use most roads or railroad tracks through the mountains, a literal army of TEMA officials and emergency workers from all levels of government have been relying on all-terrain vehicles, helicopters and other small aircraft, and even mules to carry supplies into Northeast Tennessee and the Carolinas.

Also aiding the relief effort is an unknown number of civilian volunteers determined to come to the aid of their neighbors. Anyone who assists in any cleanup should wear a mask while working, be up to date on hepatitis, tetanus and other shots, and be aware of chemical burns and other toxic threats.

Relief supplies of all descriptions are being flown in to rural WNC by private pilots and those affiliated with Operation Airdrop.  Carol Krispin

Operation Airdrop

One of the more unique civilian efforts is being led by the charity Operation Airdrop, which coordinates civilian pilots who are willing to fly into storm-ravaged areas that can’t be reached by ground transport.

Since the effort began, Operation Airdrop has moved more than 1.1. million pounds of supplies using the 525 airplanes and helicopters flown by volunteers, the agency’s executive director, Alex Clark, told Hellbender Press.

The choppers have also performed more than 900 rescues, according to Clark. 

The biggest obstacles facing pilots so far have been weather-related, he said. 

“Low clouds and mountain flying is very difficult and makes operations slow,” he explained. “That also puts a large strain on the air-traffic control centers in the area as they have to exactly manage where each aircraft is going because the aircraft can’t see each other.

A plane is loaded with supplies as part of Operation Airdrop, which flies in relief supplies to rural areas in Western North Carolina for distribution to those affected by Helene.  Carol Krispin

“Additionally, we had difficulty initially communicating with and finding the communities needing assistance. With the cell towers down this was almost impossible, which is why the helicopters scouting and finding pockets of people together really helped us map where the needs were.”

While food, water, and other basic essentials have been welcomed by the many communities the volunteers have reached, Clark said the most appreciated items have often been Starlink portable Internet stations. 

“I have to say the 500 Starlinks that were donated and activated were absolutely clutch,” he said. “We loaded one or more in each helicopter and, at minimum, we were able to park on the ground long enough to allow the community to link up and communicate with their loved ones. That was as big of a boost as a bite to eat in some cases. We also left a ton of these in local community centers where possible to continue to allow them to communicate with the outside world.”

Private pilot relief effort is “amazing”

Among the local pilots taking part in Operation Airdrop is Knoxville developer R. Bentley Marlow, who has been flying his 1949 Cessna 170A over the area since the day after the floods.

Marlow said his involvement “started when I took a flight Saturday to evaluate the damage and was blown away by the magnitude of destruction.”

He and a friend, Carol Krispin, shot photos and video of the devastation, including a haunting clip posted to Facebook that showed millions of gallons of muddy water flowing over the top of the Nolichucky Dam.

Water pours over the Nolichucky Dam as seen in this scouting flight by Knoxville developer R. Bentley Morrow and Carol Krispin.  Carol Krispin

The following day, Marlow learned about Operation Airdop from another pilot and arranged for a Tuesday flight into the mountains.

After collecting a load of donated items that had been collected by Preservation Pub, Crafty Bastard Brewery and several private citizens, he and Krispin loaded up the Cessna and flew to the east.

“We had intended to go to Sylva but there was no way there due to clouds,” said Marlow. “We found a path hugging the French Broad River into Asheville, but there the airspace was so busy that air traffic control denied us permission. We attempted to deviate to Spruce Pine based on radio calls asking for more supplies there but clouds blocked our path.”

According to Marlow, the airspace over Asheville was so choked with air traffic that it seemed even more crowded than a major international air hub like Atlanta.

Even Elizabethton, normally the very definition of bucolic small town Americana, had been turned into a bustling airhead by the deployment of a flight of U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

“We followed the French Broad back out and did some tree top flying over the ridge into the Nolichucky valley to overfly Erwin and land at Elizabethton with our supplies,” Marlow said. “We got ... supplies to Elizabethton and loaded onto a Black Hawk helicopter headed to Burnsville.”

The pair then flew the Cessna to Greeneville, with the idea of picking up another load of supplies, but found their plans thwarted by “two good ol’ boys with 4x4 trucks pulling cattle trailers heading out with all the supplies there to get them to Newport.”

He and Krispin also took on the job of checking on the well-being of a friend’s family near Mount Mitchell.

“He hadn’t heard from his family since before the storm,” Marlow said. “The house is intact, one tree was down in the yard but not on the house, the bridge to their side of the river is gone. The road into the holler is gone to a mudslide, and power lines are down for miles.”

Marlow made another aerial sojourn Thursday and was pleased that the weather had turned from dangerously overcast to almost perfect for flying.

“There were a lot more planes,” he said. “I landed at Spruce Pine, N.C. There were four planes there unloading when I landed and three others waiting to take off. The turn out by private pilots is amazing.”

He said that they also spotted a pair of CH-47 Chinooks helicopters — the heaviest lift chopper in the Army’s inventory — operating in the air near Banner Elk, N.C.

Marlow described flying into the area as very stressful, due in no small part to the sheer number of aircraft sharing the skies.

“The airspace is super crowded,” he said. “Black Hawks are everywhere. They were still performing Search and Rescue operations. The radio chatter is constantly about needing another helicopter here or there’s people needing to be picked up over there. Other planes are everywhere. But somehow it’s all working.”

While there’s been much to celebrate about the relief effort so far, Clark cautioned that the immediate future holds potentially grave challenges.

“We  have to talk about the next problem,” he said. “The mountains in the Appalachians are about to get cold. These survivors up there have no warm clothing because it washed away, little shelter, no power and no gas to run heaters. We have officially moved past the level 1 needs of food and water and we are onto shelter.”

Moving forward, anyone wishing to donate should consider giving blankets and propane heaters because “they are the new food and water that organizations are going to need.”

Commercial trucks plague Smokies, sap resources

Both Interstates 40 and 26 from Tennessee into North Carolina have been closed due to storm damage, causing massive traffic jams and forcing commercial vehicle drivers to seek out alternative — even illegal — routes. 

Some drivers, for instance, have opted to try going over the mountains on U.S. 441/Newfound Gap Road through Great Smoky Mountains National Park although large commercial vehicles are long forbidden from using that route. 

In response, the National Park Service has chosen to close the road to all traffic over the mountains during overnight hours for the foreseeable future.

“The park is working on options that prevent commercial vehicle travel without closing the road overnight, but we don’t have a timeline,” said a statement posted on the Park’s website.

Although park rangers have been using roadblocks to turn away truckers during the day, they can’t staff them around the clock.

“Newfound Gap Road is a two-lane road with steep continuous grades and tight curves. There are no truck lanes, runaway truck ramps or places for a large commercial vehicle to slow down and pull over,” the statement said.

“In a 24-hour period, the park turned away more than 45 large commercial vehicles during the day and, overnight, responded to two significant incidents. In one incident, a car hauler crashed into a wall and down an embankment and, in the other, a semi-truck’s brakes caught on fire. While responding to these incidents, eight semi-trucks drove past emergency responders.”

Pain on the Pigeon River

In hard-hit Hartford, off still-closed I-40 approaching the North Carolina border, a surge of volunteers went to work along the Pigeon River, which drains much of the Smokies and Cherokee National Forest. The river, long an example of how recreation can replace polluting industry as a viable economic driver, seemingly rose up in brutal revenge for the abuses showered upon it for generations by upstream paper milling. The National Weather Service gauge on the river at Canton recorded a peak height of about 26 feet at noon Sept. 27. That’s about 3 feet above the record level.

Debris and damage from record Pigeon River flooding is evident everywhere in the small, paddling-centered town of Hartford at the base of the Pigeon River gorge.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

All that water roared down the Pigeon River gorge into Tennessee, demolishing the road at Waterville that leads to the put in at the dam and closing access to Big Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some outposts survived, tattooed by waterlines, like River Rat; others saw their buses, vans, personal property, guide housing, offices and supply depots swept by the flood into a crunching, churning mess that stretches down the river valley to Wilton Springs. All of the outfitters to some degree lost kayaks, rafts, paddleboards, duckies, vests, paddles and gear of every description.

The Bean Trees Cafe.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

At one point near the Bean Trees cafe — gutted by floodwater but nonetheless left standing — a truck eased by with a load of muddy paddles scored on the scoured banks of the river downstream; a few moments later, a call went out for help retrieving a handful of lost boats from the tangled mess that wrapped around trees, power poles, inverted picnic tables and bridge piers in every possible direction. Takeouts and put-ins on this, a more mellow section of the Dirty Bird compared to its upstream rapids, were buried in sand and sediment that might still hold toxic remnants of the Pigeon River’s polluted past.

Raft guides who cut their teeth on the river returned to their past paddling haunt to lend many hands. Hugs were exchanged and chained together and passed outward, maybe never stopping.

Past and current raft guides turned up to help clean up their old Pigeon River paddling haunts, including several who left their current jobs on the Gauley River in West Virginia. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

A topographical map of the Tennessee side of the Pigeon River watershed still hangs in the ruined Hartford post office, where a foot of mud and a high-water mark testify to the raging power of the 28-foot-high Pigeon River. It and several other structures next to the river, however, remained standing, unlike most structures along the Nolichucky River northeast in the Erwin area, where nothing but concrete slabs and foundations remain.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Meteorologists soldiered through heartbreak

When the storm system moved over the Southern Appalachians last Friday, the staff of the National Weather Service in Morristown felt as though they were on the front lines of a war declared by Mother Nature.

They’d been expecting widespread flooding because the remains of Hurricane Helene were coming on the heels of several days of soaking rain that had thoroughly saturated the ground.

What the 15 meteorologists (plus one hydrologist) hadn’t anticipated was that they were about to bear witness to history, an event that TVA would later characterize as a “5,000 year flood” triggered by the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the region.

“It’s hard to visualize historic-level flooding until you actually see it,” said NWS meteorologist Jeremy Buckles. “I think that’s true for everyone. Our goal this weekend was to make sure that we were documenting it as well as we possibly could so that we can understand better what the impacts will be in future events.”

As the chaotic situation unfolded, the NWS team found themselves issuing a seemingly endless series of flood warnings while trying to keep contact with its system of spotters and local governments.

“We’re all obviously on edge and doing our best to sort through the data, to get the information out to save people’s lives,” Buckles said. “The whole entirety of the event, we were hitting records or near-record levels on the Pigeon River and the  Nolichucky. When you’re seeing the pictures come in of the damage it really is heartbreaking, but the job doesn’t stop. It was a very exhausting event physically and emotionally for everyone who worked and everyone who was impacted.” 

Buckles said the storm should ram home the importance of preparedness. 

“This wasn’t a normal event, to be sure, but there have been similar events in the past,” he said. “While it may not be in the near future, it could happen again some day. I think it’s a lesson for everyone in the region. This is the time to prepare and plan.”

In other developments:

The Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS) was designated as the Northeast Tennessee Disaster Relief Center in coordination with TEMA. It will serve as home base for recovery efforts and a major distribution center in the aftermath of the devastating flooding.

A Crisis Clean-Up Hotline (844) 965-1386 has been established for survivors who need assistance with clean-up efforts. This service is at no cost to the survivors who are requesting assistance.

In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, all visitor centers reopened Thursday but all North Carolina-side ranger programs remained canceled, including programs at Kuwohi, except for Mountain Farm Museum demonstrations and Oconaluftee Visitor Center porch talks. 

Most programs on the Tennessee side of the park were continuing as scheduled, according to the park website.