Nearly 400 miles from where Hurricane Helene made landfall, the North Carolina mountain hamlet of Chimney Rock Village has been all but wiped off the map.
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Homes are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Chimney Rock Village, N.C. Workers survey damage where a road once existed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Chimney Rock Village, N.C. The backs of restaurants and gift shops that boasted riverfront balconies dangle ominously in mid-air. The Hickory Nut Brewery, opened when Rutherford County went “wet” and started serving alcohol about a decade ago, collapsed on Wednesday, nearly a week after the storm.
Payne looked down and saw what he estimated to be a 30-foot-high wall of water, tossing car-sized boulders as it raced toward the town. It appeared as if the wave was devouring houses, then spitting them out. The volunteers lost communications during the storm. But when the winds finally began to quiet down around 11 a.m., Payne said, the radios began “blowing up with calls.”The pieces of what had been Chimney Rock Village were now on their way to the neighboring town of Lake Lure, which played a starring role as stand-in for a Catskills resort in the 1987 Patrick Swayze summer romance film, “Dirty Dancing.
After 85 years carrying traffic into Chimney Rock, the 1925 viaduct was converted into a verdant walkway festooned with more than 2,000 species of plants. Now partially collapsed, the bridge’s remains are draped in a tangled mass of vines, roots and tree branches.Canada, 43, who co-owns a stage rental and event production company, was at a Charlotte music festival when the storm hit.
“We’re more hard-headed than these rocks are,” said Payne, whose day job is as a site coordinator for a fast-food chain. “So, it’s going to take more than this to scare us off and run us out. It’ll be a while, but we’ll be back. Don’t count us out.” O'Leary came to town in 1990 to take a job as park manager, before it became part of the state parks system. Two years later, he and his wife opened Bubba O’Leary’s General Store, named for their yellow Labrador retriever.
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