Hurricane Helene has wrought havoc across the Southeastern U.S., but few places have felt her damage as extensively as the scenic North Carolina town of Chimney Rock and the Lake Lure area, where the popular movies Dirty Dancing and The Last of the Mohicans were filmed.
After initially appearing to make it through the storm unscathed, violent floodwaters overwhelmed a dam, causing the area to be completely overrun and destroying nearly the entire town.
Rescue crew leader Chris Murray told the media: “The village? There’s just nothing left.”
Before-and-after photos circulating online show that the picturesque village, which is situated around 110 miles to the northwest of Charlotte, is now totally covered in mud and debris. Video footage depicted powerful waves of mud flowing across yards and tearing homes apart, sweeping their debris down the torrent. Other footage showed roadways and SUVs being tossed away by floodwaters.
Many of the businesses in the Broad River area of town are completely gone, and rescue crews have described the damage as “unimaginable.” Some residents say they lost everything.
Local restaurant owner George Carter told NBC News: "Buildings are gone. Streets are gone. Homes are completely gone or damaged. Maybe 40% of Chimney Rock is still there. The stuff that's still there is filled with mud and smashed up."
At one point, emergency officials worried that the dam in Lake Lure would fail. The danger appears to have passed for now, but the dam did experience erosion from water that spilled over its sides.
North Carolina GOP national committee member Ed Broyhill, who has a home on the lake, described the devastation, saying: "The saddest thing in the world is that a lot of the folks have etched out a living catering to tourism…. They have everything from hotels and motels and restaurants and nice stores and souvenir stores and clothing stores, and all of that was washed away. Every bit of it, all of it, was washed into the lake."
Residents in the area have been asked to avoid traveling so search teams can look for stranded people who need to be rescued. One major rescue effort saved 41 people to the north of Asheville, while another saved an infant in peril.
Many people are unable to reach their loved ones due to cellular service outages, leading to widespread panic and unease as they await news.
North Carolina devastated by aftermath of storm
North Carolina was particularly hard hit by the hurricane. Roughly a third of the overall deaths attributed to the hurricane so far come from the state, and there are hundreds of people who are still unaccounted for. Governor Roy Cooper expects the state’s death toll to rise as emergency workers make their way to some of the areas that have been cut off as a result of failing infrastructure and flooding.
In the Asheville area, the death toll more than tripled on Monday as more bodies emerged, with some survivors reporting seeing dead bodies stuck in trees and beneath rubble.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell described the damage in North Carolina, saying that its mountainous geography means that some communities have been completely cut off thanks to damaged bridges and roads. Emergency crews are airlifting supplies to some of the isolated areas.
Criswell added: “It’s still very much an active search and rescue mission” in the Western part of the state.
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