Makeshift bridges allow transportation as recovery from Helene continues in the Appalachians

AccuWeather

Weeks after Hurricane Helene caused widespread devastation in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, life is anything but normal for many rural communities.

Transcript

00:00Relief efforts continue weeks after Helene's devastating impacts.

00:04That's right. Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby joins us live tonight from Butler in northeast Tennessee,

00:09just over the North Carolina state line. Aaron, I understand getting around this area has been

00:14pretty tricky due to the damage to the roads and bridges. Give us an update.

00:20Yeah, good evening guys. If tonight doesn't prove how important it is to follow up with

00:24the stories, I don't know what does. Because back in North Carolina, a little closer to Asheville,

00:28there is almost a little bit of a sense of normality. Some of the cell phone coverage

00:32has been restored, and a lot of the internet connections have been restored. That's not

00:36the case around on this part. They still are about cell service on both Verizon and AT&T,

00:42but the local church here, the Little Milken Baptist Church, they have free Wi-Fi here

00:46for the storm victims to communicate with the outside world. And they actually had to make

00:50this makeshift bridge because their main bridge was completely taken out and washed away,

00:54and this is their compromise. So some of that creativity is coming into good use today

00:59to help along with those storm victims. Wow, Aaron, and this leads into our next question.

01:04Earlier, you were in Asheville, where you shot some incredible video showing the

01:09deforestation. Can you tell us more about that issue as well? Just some amazing video caught

01:15earlier. Yeah, absolutely. That was the first time I've actually seen something to that caliber. In

01:23the top of the mountains around in the Asheville area looks like something that I would see with

01:28tornado damage of EF3 plus type caliber just buzz sawing the top of those mountains. And that's

01:33what's been hampering a lot of efforts to get the Blue Ridge Parkway open to tourists that still

01:38won't come through. Also to get that supplies up to storm victims in those smaller communities up

01:44into the mountains, which they're still today. Some people still stranded up there, and a lot

01:49of the nation starting backlog because they can't take big truckloads like some of the other

01:53communities down in the lower oceans. They have to take it up by four-wheeler or side-by-side,

01:57so it's creating a lot of complications for this area still. And we're almost a month

02:02since landfall with those lingering effects. All right, Aaron Rigsby, thank you so much for

02:08that update. He's live right now in Butler, Tennessee. We'll check in with him coming up

02:12because this recovery process, as you can see with that widespread devastation, it's going to take

02:17weeks, if not months, for some of these communities to rebound as we look at the

02:22after effects from both Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Category

Transcript

Recommended