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Some of the communities hit hardest by Hurricane Helene are also the hardest to reach. NPR's Nathan Rott reports from North Carolina.
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NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: The only part of Wayne Crosby's outfitting shop in Hot Springs, North Carolina, that looks anything like what it used to is a beam that runs high across the ceiling. It's decorated with photos, proof of the hundreds of Appalachian Trail hikers who have stopped by in the 27 years he's been in business. The trail runs right through town. Asked if he'll reopen...
WAYNE CROSBY: We'll see. You know, there's not a lot of undamaged real estate around here (laughter).
ROTT: Spring Creek flooded its banks here during the storm, sending a torrent of water through every shop on this block, ripping floors from their foundations and piling debris everywhere. Across the street, a skid steer dumps dirt in a sinkhole about the size of a house.
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ROTT: The damage to towns anywhere near a creek, a river or really wherever there's water across southern Appalachia is staggering. Farther down the mountain on the banks of a broiling brown French Broad River, the once-picturesque town of Marshall was completely inundated.
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ROTT: The inside of homes, tattoo parlors, art studios and breweries resemble a riverbed, covered in a thick, sticky mud that Brandon and Reesa Edwards are trying to shovel out. Their emotions are all over the place.
BRANDON EDWARDS: Work a little, cry a little, work a little, cry a little.
REESA EDWARDS: Yeah. No, it's just kind of surreal. Like, it hasn't really sunk in yet.
ROTT: Several buildings in Marshall, a town of about 800 people, are partially collapsed. Some are just gone altogether, washed downstream. About 50 need to be totally gutted.
ANNE SCHNEIDER: Disaster.
ROTT: Anne Schneider owns a building that she's not sure is going to be salvageable. She's covered in mud, like everything else.
SCHNEIDER: As far as rebuilding, I don't know. You know, the south end is just wiped out. You know, there's new rivers formed and holes and all that kind of stuff. So I don't know how the...
ROTT: And the hydrology is going to change forever probably (ph)...
SCHNEIDER: Yeah.
ROTT: ...In some of these places.
SCHNEIDER: Yeah, so I don't know. You know, rebuilding what? What gets rebuilt? Or what is just, you're not building there anymore?
FORREST GILLIAM: I don't think there's any desire to give up on the place.
ROTT: Forrest Gilliam, a lifelong resident of Marshall and the town administrator, says there are places they probably will not build back and that they'll try to adapt as much as they can.
GILLIAM: We'll be, you know, I think, very aware that these things - that this can happen. We hope that it's something that we can talk about when we're 80, 90 years old and be a distant memory, but it may not be.
ROTT: Flooding isn't new to Marshall. The town was nearly wiped out in 1916, and it's flooded off and on ever since. Nearly everyone we talk to here, though, says they're invested in the community and want to bring it back. Tom Lillard is among them, but he's not sure that he'll stay.
TOM LILLARD: With things with the climate right now, folks are scratching their head, wondering, you know, what's a realistic thing to consider as far as what to do and what the future holds?
ROTT: It's not the main thing driving his decision, he says. He's got a grandkid that lives up north. But he's going to take it, like everyone else here, one day at a time.
Nathan Rott, NPR News, Marshall, North Carolina. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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