Rafters and boaters once again have public access to the Nolichucky River as of June 12 when the Forest Service reopened the Poplar Boat Launch in the Pisgah National Forest. 

This milestone marks the culmination of several months of construction to rebuild the Helene-damaged site and ensure it is safe, durable and ready to welcome visitors once again. 

Gov. Josh Stein has changed the amount of aid he’s requesting from Congress for ongoing Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. 

Stein traveled to Washington, D.C., along with state Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) to speak with North Carolina’s congressional delegation to offer details on his ask. The previously requested amount was $13.48 billion, a number that Stein lowered to $10.17 billion in a letter he sent to the delegation the day of their meeting. 

Hurricane Helene’s torrential rains in September 2024 caused the Pigeon River to surge to record flow that ripped sections of Interstate 40 to shreds, but the nearby Walters Dam, and powerhouse 12 miles below it, withstood the devastating storm with little damage. 

“The dam was in no way compromised. It functioned perfectly, just like it should. We opened it up to let water out,” Alan Stuart Jr., a senior project manager for Duke Energy, told a Haywood County audience last week during a presentation about the hydropower plant on the Pigeon River. 

The project to repair the eastbound lanes of I-40 washed away in Haywood County during Hurricane Helene is progressing on-time, but the heavy lift has really just begun. When Helene tore through Western North Carolina in 2024, it inundated the embankment supporting the highway so vital to interstate commerce, washing away about a million cubic yards of rock and dropping the eastbound lanes into the water below.

Construction has begun on the long-planned renovations to the Bobby N. Setzer Hatchery near Brevard, and contractors are saying the project is on schedule for a full-reopening early next year. 

During a tour for local media last week, contractors and state officials provided an inside look at the construction. Stacks of piping, totaling about 2.5 miles line the site of future trout raceways, heavy equipment moves rock and laborers dig and survey.

More than 18 months after Hurricane Helene carved a path of destruction across Western North Carolina, the numbers meant to measure recovery have become a political battleground — one where claims made by Helene recovery czar and Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley are increasingly at odds with the state’s own data. 

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, a battered American flag pulled from the Rocky Broad River has taken on new meaning for a community still working to recover. 

The storm swept through Western North Carolina in September 2024, leaving death and destruction in its wake. 

The question before the North Carolina Utilities Commission is simple — should residential customers on fixed incomes continue to subsidize commercial and industrial customers, AI data centers owned by globalist juggernauts, environmentally unfriendly generation practices, industrial accidents and the astronomical corporate salaries of millionaires who run a monopoly, or not?

The Pisgah Conservancy has been awarded a 4.5-year, nearly $8 million grant from the National Forest Foundation on behalf of the USDA Forest Service.

This grant will support the repair and maintenance of trails, trail bridges and other trail infrastructure, as well as ecosystem recovery through invasive plant management, streambank stabilization, erosion control and watershed stewardship and education. 

Lisa McDonald is not simply rebuilding what Hurricane Helene took from her — she’s replacing it with something that did not exist before. 

“There was a definite calm before the storm,” McDonald told The Smoky Mountain News of her experience with Hurricane Helene in Hendersonville on Sept. 27, 2024.