One year after Hurricane Helene unleashed its fury across the Southern United States, the banks of North Carolina’s French Broad River remain a testament to both nature’s power and the resilience of the communities that call its waters home. As volunteers and environmentalists wade through the river’s currents, their efforts to restore the battered ecosystem are revealing both the progress made and the daunting challenges that linger.
Clancy Loorham, a 27-year-old volunteer with a wispy beard and a knack for finding the unexpected, epitomizes the spirit of the cleanup. Bracing himself against the current, he wrestles a broken PVC pipe from the rocky riverbed and peers inside. With a shout that carries across the water, he announces, “I got a catfish in the pipe! He’s right here. I’m looking him in the eyes!” According to the Associated Press, this moment underscores the strange new habitats—born of disaster and debris—that now dot the river.
The story of Helene’s devastation is one of staggering scale. The hurricane claimed more than 250 lives and left behind nearly $80 billion in damages from Florida to the Carolinas, as reported by multiple outlets including the AP and local North Carolina news. In the mountains, rainfall exceeding 30 inches transformed gentle streams into raging torrents, sweeping away trees, homes, vehicles, and even carving new channels through the landscape. Debris from the storm, including vehicles, fragments of homes, and industrial pipes, was swept into river systems and carried as far as Douglas Lake in Tennessee, some 90 miles away.
Yet, as the focus shifted from survival to recovery, new concerns emerged. The rush to restore normalcy, while well-intentioned, may have inadvertently compounded the environmental toll. Peter Raabe, Southeast regional director for American Rivers, told the AP, “They were using the river almost as a highway in some situations.” The use of heavy machinery and the removal of large debris often meant sensitive habitats were disturbed. Jon Stamper, river cleanup coordinator for the nonprofit MountainTrue, observed, “Those trees kind of create fish habitats. They slow the flow of water down. They’re an important part of a river system, and we’ve seen kind of a disregard for that.”
Contractors hired for debris removal sometimes cut down healthy trees and removed live root balls—actions that, while expedient, stripped the riverbanks of crucial stability and habitat. The Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged the challenges, stating that debris removal missions “are often challenging” due to the vast volume left behind by such storms. The Corps assured that contractors are trained to minimize environmental harm, and North Carolina Emergency Management echoed that their projects met federal standards, including those set by FEMA.
But for those monitoring the rivers’ health, the ecological aftermath is sobering. Hannah Woodburn, MountainTrue’s Upper New Riverkeeper, described muddier waters across tributaries—a consequence of both vegetation loss from the storm and the heavy machinery used during cleanup. The impact on wildlife has been severe. The eastern hellbender, a giant salamander species of special concern in North Carolina, suffered heavy losses. “After the storm, we had so many reports and pictures of dead hellbenders, some nearly a mile from the stream once the waters receded,” Woodburn told the AP.
Even more alarming is the plight of the Appalachian elktoe, a federally endangered mussel found only in the mountains of North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Mike Perkins, a state biologist, recounted distressing scenes: “finding crushed individuals, some of them still barely alive, some with their insides hanging out.” In some cases, biologists moved mussels to refuge sites upstream or to hatcheries until it was safe to return them to the wild. Perkins called the scale of the incident “shocking and unprecedented in my professional line of work in 15 years.”
Andrea Leslie, mountain habitat conservation coordinator with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, reflected on the difficult balance between emergency response and environmental stewardship: “To a certain degree, you can’t do this perfectly. They’re in emergency mode. They’re working to make sure that people are safe and that infrastructure is safe. And it’s a big, complicated process. And there are multiple places in my observation where we could shift things to be more careful.”
The human toll is no less poignant. Vickie and Paul Revis, whose home beside the Swannanoa River was swept away by Helene, have spent the past year rebuilding their lives. With little choice but to stay on their land, they lived in a donated camper while constructing a new double-wide modular home atop a six-foot mound built from rock, fill dirt, and broken concrete provided by debris-removal contractors. “When you own it and you’re not rich, you know, you can’t,” Vickie Revis told the AP, her gaze lingering on condemned buildings across the river. She has since planted marigolds and a weeping willow for stability—and purchased flood insurance. “Mother Nature does whatever she wants to do, and you just have to roll with it.”
Recovery is a communal effort. Since July, volunteers—many of them rafting guides displaced by the storm—have removed more than 75 tons of debris from about a dozen rivers across five watersheds. MountainTrue received a $10 million, 18-month state grant to support this painstaking work. Red-tailed hawks and ospreys circle overhead as crews in rafts, canoes, and kayaks pile up plastic pipes and other detritus. The peace of the present belies the chaos of a year ago, when the river’s fury upended so many lives.
Yet, beneath the surface, emotional scars remain. Liz McGuirl, a crew member and former salon manager, shared, “There are so many people who are living in western North Carolina right now that feel very afraid of our rivers. They feel hurt. They feel betrayed.” Crew leader Leslie Beninato, reflecting on the makeshift habitats created by debris, said ruefully, “I’d like to give them a tree as a home, maybe, instead of a pipe.”
In Asheville’s River Arts District, the reopening of the Marquee art gallery stands as a symbol of renewal. The French Broad River’s floodwaters once rushed through the district’s businesses, leaving behind mud and heartbreak. Each restoration milestone, such as the gallery’s reopening, signals hope for the community’s future—even as reminders of Helene’s destruction linger.
As the cleanup continues, the intertwined stories of people, wildlife, and rivers reveal a community striving not just to recover, but to learn and adapt. The work is far from over, but with every ton of debris removed and every home rebuilt, North Carolina edges closer to a healthier, more resilient future—one shaped by both the lessons and the losses of Hurricane Helene.
