Only a month after the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, another anniversary comes due for a different catastrophic storm—it is the first anniversary after Hurricane Helene devastated the communities of the Southern Appalachians.

On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in southwestern Florida as a Category 4 hurricane with a peak sustained windspeed of 140 mph. After inundating Florida with storm surge, Helene swept north into Georgia and then the Carolinas, before stalling over Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia and eventually dissipating.

However, it brought both tornado-strength winds and a deluge of rainfall that triggered flooding throughout the mountains and valleys of the Southeast. The hurricane was one of the deadliest and most destructive on record, causing more than 250 deaths and just under $80 billion in damage.

Helene cut a path over nine national forests from Florida to Kentucky: the Apalachicola, Cherokee, Chattahoochee-Oconee, Daniel Boone, Francis Marion & Sumter, George Washington & Jefferson, Nantahala, Osceola and Pisgah national forests. The forests and the USDA Forest Service employees that manage them were right in the path of destruction.

“Hard to wrap my mind around”

The devastation left by the flooding and winds was catastrophic. Alexandra Davison, a recreation specialist on the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina, was directly impacted.

“There was so much damage it was hard to wrap my mind around,” Davison remembered. “Roads were gone; creeks were running through where roads once were. Many landslides blocked access.”

On the Pisgah, as well as the other national forests in the Southern Appalachian region, roads crisscross the mountains, many of them the only way for people to get to and from their homes. All of the flooding, downed trees, washed-out roads and landslides blocked them in, making evacuation and rescue extremely difficult.

That meant clearing those roads was a priority.  Forest Service leaders quickly activated their incident management teams, trained to respond to all hazards, including hurricanes.

“On the Pisgah, our forest leadership not only called in the Southern Area Incident Management Blue Team, one of the standing wildfire response teams, but they also called in saw teams to clear the roads,” Davison said.

Of course, it wasn’t just downed trees. The deluge of water caused creeks and streams to burst their banks, bringing immense quantities of mud, sand and stone with them. After the waters receded, all of that sediment was left on the roads and trails. On the Sumter National Forest alone, more than 53 dump truck loads of sand and sediment had to be removed.

“All of us were affected”

For Davison, Helene was a baptism by flood.

“I grew up in Michigan, so this was my first hurricane,” she recalled. “After the winds died down, we had no power, no water, no cell service. This would last for weeks, and we were the more fortunate ones.”

Word of mouth and radio were the only forms of communication. Cell towers were damaged or destroyed, major roads had been blocked or washed away, and many communities were completely cut off from each other.

“I remember an EMT friend telling me that, however bad we thought things were, they were worse,” Davison said. “My family, my friends, my coworkers, all of us were affected.”

Forest Service employees on the affected forests live in the communities that border and even lie within the national forests. They faced the same challenges and obstacles as their neighbors. They had to balance finding their family members and caring for their friends and neighbors with their vital work on the forests to reopen access so other people could find and care for their friends and family.

As Davison remembered, “The bridge that led to our district ranger’s neighborhood was swept away, and she still came into the office every day after the storm. I was able to come into work soon after, but when I headed home for the night, it was problem-solving where to get gas, how to cook, and how to wash the dishes.”

Reopening recreation areas, restoring livelihoods

After weeks of heavy work, the longer-term recovery began. For Davison, that meant restoring access to the recreation areas she manages.

“Most of our recreation sites on the forest were impacted,” said Davison. “Campgrounds, trails, boat launches, day-use sites like picnic areas, all of them were closed either due to direct damage or because no one could get to them.”

This posed an immediate problem for the local economy. The Pisgah, like other national forests in the region, is a significant recreation draw for tourists, bringing in thousands of visitors each year for white-water rafting, hiking, camping and regular festivals. Places like the Virginia Creeper Trail on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest are the primary draw for visitors.

These tourists spend money on outfitters, hotels and restaurants, directly fueling the businesses and livelihoods of the people that live in and around the national forests. In western North Carolina alone, recreation is a billion-dollar industry largely focused on the national forests. With these sites destroyed or closed, those tourists might not stay where they are recreating, and the communities would suffer a second time.

“The storm happened near the end of the busy rafting season and when we would be closing campgrounds for the winter, so we set a goal for ourselves over the winter—get as much open as we possibly could by spring,” Davison explained.

With that goal in mind, Davison and her colleagues on the Pisgah and the other national forests set to work. Over the next six months, Forest Service employees, non-governmental organization staff, state and local government employees, and hundreds of others worked tirelessly to get the recreation areas the region depends on back up and running.

Roan Mountain rejuvenated

One such area was Roan Mountain, a popular tourist destination. Split between the Cherokee National Forest to the north and the Pisgah National Forest to the south, visitors come from all over to see the beautiful mountain views from the summit, as well as its crown jewel: the world’s largest natural rhododendron garden. In fact, every June, there is a long-running annual rhododendron festival on Roan Mountain that is vital for the local economy.

For Davison and her colleagues on the Cherokee and Pisgah national forests, as well as Roan Mountain State Park, making sure the mountain was reopened and ready for this festival was a priority. Saw crews set to work just weeks after Helene had passed, cutting trees to reopen roads and trails. The crews came to repair the facilities and infrastructure, remove the downed trees to reduce fire hazards and, finally, make sure the site was capable of hosting the festival.

Thanks to all the work by Forest Service staff, partners and volunteers, Roan Mountain reopened in time for the Rhododendron Festival this past summer. “Visitors were very excited that the recreation area was open and that they were able to see the rhododendron gardens,” Davison said.

Removing downed trees to reduce fire risk

Counterintuitively, hurricanes can drastically increase wildfire risk. Although the flooding grabbed the headlines, Hurricane Helene also brought devastating winds that knocked down thousands of trees.

“Where there wasn’t damage from water, there were acres of trees blown down from high wind gusts,” Davison recalled. “Hillsides of 20-inch diameter trees snapped off like toothpicks. Piled up on the bridge going into Black Mountain campground, there was a log jam that stretched half the length of a football field into the South Toe River. And of course, that was just on our district; there was more damage elsewhere.”

Indeed, across the nine affected national forests, tens of thousands of acres of trees had been downed. In addition to blocking roads and bridges, these dead and damaged trees posed a longer-term problem: increased wildfire risk.

All of that extra dead and drying wood could become fuel to ignite or sustain a wildfire, allowing the flames to build extra intensity and cause more damage than they otherwise might. Not only that, but the logs also provide a breeding ground for insects and diseases that could kill otherwise healthy trees, adding even more fire risk.

To counteract that, forest managers on the national forests worked with local timber companies and communities to identify and begin removing the downed trees as quickly as possible. This had the double benefit of providing timber material to these companies for use in various of products, including lumber for furniture, construction materials, and even biochar—a type of charcoal that is beneficial for fertilizing soil. With both the agricultural and construction sectors heavily affected by Hurricane Helene, these forest products will be very useful.

The national forests also issued free-use firewood permits, allowing the public to harvest the downed trees and branches for their firewood and other home uses.

Long road to recovery

Thanks to the efforts of Davison and her Forest Service colleagues, significant recovery progress has been made in the year since Hurricane Helene made landfall. Hundreds of miles of roads and trails have been reopened, and dozens of bridges repaired and restored. Recreation sites are mostly back and functioning.

Even so, as the second year post-Helene begins, there is still a lot of work to be done.

“We are very much still in the process of active repair and recovery,” Davison explained. “On the Pisgah, we have several large projects in the works, including road repairs, trail repairs and relocation, and campground repairs. Due to the size and scope of the damage, recovery will be a years-long process.”

Similar situations exist on the Chattahoochee-Oconee, Cherokee, Daniel Boone, Francis Marion-Sumter and George Washington and Jefferson national forests, as well as all the others affected by Helene’s devastation. While forest staff continue to restore operations and keep essential services running, contracts are being put in place to begin the full recovery and restoration of what the hurricane destroyed.

“We have many bridges to cross in terms of long-term recovery, but I’m proud of what we have accomplished so far,” Davison said. “It wouldn’t be possible without my talented coworkers. Looking at what we have done the past year, I feel positive about the future.”

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