From CPP: ‘Scars of the storm.’ Helene is gone, but its impact is far from over in Mitchell County.

Downtown Spruce Pine in Mitchell County, seen here on Oct. 4, 2024, sustained massive flood damage from the North Toe River during Tropical Storm Helene in late September. Colby Rabon / Carolina Public Press

With the county’s supermarket, downtown restaurants, manufacturing sites and prisons struggling to reopen in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene, Mitchell County now has the highest unemployment rate in North Carolina at nearly 9% — almost three times higher than roughly a year ago.

Recovery and rebuilding from the late-September storm has turned out to be a much longer and more arduous process than residents and officials had hoped. While residents continue to wait on insurance settlements and federal money, massive piles of trash and debris still line the streets.

Winter weather is now slowing things down even further.

And more people are joining the ranks of the unemployed.

Experts from the state Department of Commerce have tried to be reassuring in light of the bad news, but that is no easy sell for the residents of the mountain county. The land and its people are still in rough, raw shape.

“Scars of the storm are everywhere, and it’s hard to see progress some days,” Beth Holmes, a Town Council member in Spruce Pine, told Carolina Public Press.

“Downtown businesses are trying to build back, though many have already been mortgaged. I fear that once they do rebuild, we will have lost the workforce that it would take to open back up. Everything is moving slower than we imagined it would. The devastation here is just unbelievable.

“We are all in need of some movement, something to give us hope.”

Deep despair and job losses

In Mitchell County, 217 people claimed state unemployment assistance for the week ending Dec. 21 — 43% percent of whom were in the trade, transportation and utilities industry. Another 27% were from the leisure and hospitality sector.

The county’s two prisons — Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution and Mountain View Correctional Institution — are a major source of employment. But once Helene disrupted the water system, it became necessary to move the inmates. Now the prisons sit empty, without need for guards or custodians.

“The Army Corps of Engineers is working on getting us more water so we can have the prisoners brought back,” Rocky Buchanan, Spruce Pine’s Mayor Pro Tempore, told CPP.

“All we’re waiting on right now is a Band-Aid for our river water intake. Prisons use approximately 5 million gallons of water a month, and right until that water source is up and running, we can’t bring those inmates back.”

An Ingles in Spruce Pine is the area’s main grocery store and Mitchell County’s sixth-largest employer. But major flooding closed the store and it’s not expected to reopen before May. That leaves a Walmart as the only place left where residents can buy groceries.

Bombardier Motor Corporation of America, another leading employer in the area, conducted a “temporary” layoff of around 100 people, according to Michelle Fenlin, a case manager at the regional NC Works Career Center. The manufacturing facility uses a lot of water for its heating and cooling processes, and it was too great a strain on the damaged county water system, she said.

One bright spot: The region’s mining industry, led by Sibelco Corp., has managed to operate at full capacity.

However, on a lesser scale, there are at least four small businesses in downtown Spruce Pine that will not be coming back. Others are trying to raise money to rebuild.

“The thriving downtown area of Mitchell County probably got hit the hardest, whereas in other counties it was the residential areas that got hit the hardest,” Fenlin explained.

“Spruce Pine is really kind of like the heart of the county, the busiest area, and that downtown area and its businesses got hit really badly. Things are still kind of rough around there.”

Doing the unemployment rate math

It may take awhile for the unemployment rate to fall to an acceptable level.

As Mitchell County improves, so, too, will the job market. Along the way, though, it’ll probably be a struggle.

Living in temporary housing, dealing with ongoing road maintenance and navigating adverse winter weather are the main factors keeping residents out of the jobs that do remain open, explained Morgan Buchanan, the northwest regional director of the NC Small Business Center Network.

“A lot of our small businesses have found ways to try to pivot just a little bit to have income continue coming in,” Buchanan said.

“It’s obviously not at the full scale of what they had been accustomed to, but it’s definitely some income. Some of them have online stores. Some of them have remote locations or temporary locations.”

Andrew Berger-Gross, a senior economist for the N.C. Department of Commerce, is quick to point out that the unemployment rate actually fell in Mitchell County between October and November, from 10.3% to 8.9%.

In Buncombe County, the mountain’s most populated area, the unemployment rate fell as well, but by a larger margin than in Mitchell.

“Buncombe, and the city of Asheville, has a more diversified economy than Mitchell,” Berger-Gross told CPP. “Plus, there are some particular infrastructure impacts that disproportionately hit more rural areas.

“We are still at a relatively early date when it comes to tracking the economic impact of the storm on this area. Most counties impacted by Hurricane Helene have seen a spike in unemployment insurance claims. But at the same time, we’re seeing reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that job growth in the region has bounced back relatively quickly.

“The evidence suggests to me that we’re seeing more of what you might call an economic disruption rather than an economic depression. Clearly, a lot of people’s working arrangements were disrupted by the storm. Their connection to their particular employer was severed. That’s why you see this large spike in unemployment insurance claims. However, all available evidence continues to suggest that the economic fundamentals in the region remain relatively strong and there are still plenty of jobs available.”

An ‘inevitable’ exodus

Unemployment. It’s a familiar story here.

The rural region, somewhat isolated by the mountains, has struggled with its economic viability, and Helene has exposed some of the area’s tender points.

“Spruce Pine saw the exodus of the furniture industry starting in the late ’90s,” Holmes recalled.  “Arson devastated several downtown buildings in the early 2000s. Recovery from these losses has been slow and ongoing. I feel like Helene took every bit of ground we’d gained. Within the county the biggest job sources — outside of schools and government — are the mines and two prisons.

“We are so grateful for these industries, but we desperately need resources to rebuild a community that can attract and keep workers. Helene wiped out infrastructure, parks, restaurants and shops — a workforce exodus seems inevitable.

“Some see it as a sacrifice to live in a rugged, isolated and economically-depressed mountain town. The truth is there’s a trade. If we can’t get back these basic amenities, Helene will tip the scales too far against all the things that make it worth it.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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