The Blue Ridge Parkway is more than just a road: It’s part of the lifeblood of Appalachia. The parkway’s 469 scenic miles encompass 100,000 acres and cross 29 counties between Virginia and North Carolina, representing the region’s cultural and economic backbone.
After Tropical Storm Helene tore through Western North Carolina, washing away the parkway’s trails and beloved stretches of roadway, it felt like a blow to the region, said Superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway Tracy Swartout.
“While some people think of [the parkway] as just a road or a right of way, [it’s] definitely more than that. We’re a really important recreational asset and an economic driver for all of our surrounding communities,” Swartout said, speaking to a handful of reporters during a March 28 virtual meeting. “We’re a national historic landmark, and the landscapes, views, trails and treasured areas are significant assets for all of our surrounding communities.”
But as summer approaches, efforts are underway not just to rebuild what is lost but to restore the parkway with resilience that honors its historical, environmental and economic significance.
Pressing issues
The parkway, which rises from 649 feet above sea level at the James River in Virginia to 6,047 feet at Richland Balsam in North Carolina, is also known for its wide range of plant and animal life, says Josh Kelly, field biologist at Asheville-based environmental nonprofit MountainTrue.
“The parkway has the full elevation range of the Blue Ridge Mountains, from high to low, and it also goes north to south for a long way,” Kelly explains. “So you have what is basically a huge transect through the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are one of the most biodiverse areas in North America.”
But like much of Western North Carolina, the parkway was walloped by Tropical Storm Helene. Damage on the parkway was extensive and included roads, trails and buildings and natural and cultural resources across both Virginia and North Carolina.
During the press meeting in March, Swartout said the parkway had at least 57 known landslides, though National Park Service workers are still discovering damage. The roadway destruction extended over 200 miles, with the highest concentration of damage occurring from Linville Falls near milepost 317 south to Mount Mitchell State Park near milepost 349.
Infrastructure, such as visitor centers, restrooms, picnic areas and historic buildings, were also damaged or destroyed. “The Linville Falls Visitor Center was a total loss after the storm and will need to be removed,” Swartout said.
The damage also impacted forested areas, waterways, riparian habitat and a large portion of more than 300 miles of trails. Kelly estimates that roughly 16,000 acres experienced severe damage from winds, and an additional 52,000 acres sustained moderate or minor impacts. He notes that one of the most pressing issues from an ecological standpoint is invasive species within parts of the forests that could emerge in the absence of native trees and plants.
“Following Helene, what could happen on some stretches of the parkway is a loss of diversity, a loss of richness and more homogenization,” says Kelly. “Particularly in the areas around Asheville, there’s already a lot of invasive species pressure, and I think that’s just going to get worse because of all the increased sunlight and soil observance from the storm.”
Support en route
Swartout explained that funding for storm repair is coming from multiple sources, including more than $2 billion in supplemental disaster funding allocated to the National Park Service to rebuild and repair national park roads and facilities. The parkway also received $25 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration emergency relief funds to repair several slide locations, remove debris and repair roadway guardrails.
“These are very, very significant, multimillion dollar projects,” Swartout said. “The debris removal is immense.”
Andy Otten, project manager at the National Park Service who is overseeing some of the parkway’s road repair, said at the March 28 press meeting that eight locations from the Virginia state line through Devil’s Courthouse near mile marker 422.4 are targeted for completion in late summer to early fall.
“Several of the sites have multiple slides that are being repaired. Some of these slides are down on the large fill slopes below the road, jeopardizing the stability of the road, while others took out the road along with the fill slope,” Otten explained. “The initial effort is removing over 30,000 cubic yards of material, and this is just the first pass at addressing some of the more significant locations.”
Of the 469 miles of road, 312 miles are open, and 157 miles are closed. All of the closed roads are in North Carolina, where hundreds of barriers and road closure signs litter sections of the parkway.
As visitors and residents begin making their way up to the parkway this summer, Swartout said visitors should use the parkway’s road status page as they plan their visit and emphasized that heeding the road closures is important, not only for safety reasons, but to avoid delaying recovery efforts.
“These closures are very important, and what we have done is closed, not only the road itself, but the adjacent trails. And the roadway and the adjacent trails are closed to all use, motor vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians and hikers,” she said. “It may not be obvious. You may be looking at a piece of pavement that looks quite fine from above, and yet it’s undercut, and we have a project in development for doing that repair work.”
The road ahead
As work to repair begins, parkway staff is not only looking at repair, but resilience and long-term preservation. Swartout noted that while the parkway is naturally susceptible to future landslides, park service workers are taking new engineering into account as they rebuild.
“When you think about the geology of the parkway, we’re characterized by steep slopes, rocky outcroppings and fragile soils. And as such, we are really sensitive to weather events like this,” Swartout explained. “And so that combination of both the high altitude, the rugged terrain and shifting weather. Weather patterns make areas along the parkway susceptible to geologic transformation. And certainly, that’s what we saw.”
“Some of these fill slopes were built 80 years ago, using the best technology at the time, but now we’re able to use detailed engineering models to design these systems for greater durability,” added Otten.
MountainTrue biologist Kelly says that his organization plans to partner with groups like Carolina Mountain Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and other conservation groups to help with environmental repair and protection.
“The parkway is going to be forever changed by this, but I think that we can make a difference,” he says. “We can help steward the land and the forest back to its glory, but it’s going to take a big investment of effort and time and money.”
Meanwhile, George Ivey, North Carolina development director at the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, a nonprofit that supports historic preservation, conservation and visitor services for the parkway, says that the foundation is creating a program dubbed Detours of Discovery, which directs visitors to lesser-known towns, restaurants and recreational opportunities sprinkled between the parkway’s closed sections.
“We’re trying to work with those communities, from Avery County down through Mitchell, Yancy and Buncombe, and looking at detours for people who are wanting to experience the whole parkway to have some other good options that they take them into those communities. They can have a great experience and support the economic recovery in those areas,” Ivey explains.
Swartout added that while rebuilding is going to take many years, some destinations along the parkway are beginning to reopen, including The Pisgah Inn, The Bluffs restaurant and several campgrounds and hiking trails.
“I really want to share that despite the fact that we have a lot of recovery work to do, and the images are very dramatic, there is a lot to see and do on the parkway, very many of the parkways miles are open,” she said. “The recovery from Hurricane Helene is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. …We are going to have some early wins, and we’re going to celebrate those wins together.”
