Tropical Storm Helene closed the most famous road in Western North Carolina

The Blue Ridge Parkway remains closed throughout North Carolina and Virginia after Tropical Storm Helene tore through the mountains last week, and the National Park Service says it doesn’t know when the road will reopen.

In North Carolina, the two-lane highway meanders 252 miles from the Virginia line to the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All 252 miles are closed, as crews clear fallen trees and debris and assess damage to the roadway.

The park service has brought in outside help. As of last week, about 250 park service employees from 32 states and the District of Columbia were helping Blue Ridge Parkway staff with recovery, said spokesman Mike Litterst.

Litterst said park service teams were still doing initial inspections of the roadway.

“Based on what the teams have seen so far, significant, and in some cases catastrophic, damage has occurred along the parkway,” he wrote in an email.

Crews estimate tens of thousands of trees fell across the road in North Carolina, where they count nearly three dozen rock and mud slides, the park service said in an update Oct. 8. The slides occurred above and below the road and have severely damaged or swept away the roadbed in numerous places.

The worst damage, Litterst said, appears to be in a 189-mile stretch from near Grandfather Mountain to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The damage includes places where buildings, such as the Linville Falls Visitor Center, were destroyed.

Litterst said it will take weeks for the park service to fully assess the damage and begin to estimate how long it will take to make repairs and how much they might cost. That means the road will remain closed through fall foliage season, when traffic is often bumper to bumper.

Completed in 1936, the parkway runs 469 miles between Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

The parkway is both a local route for residents and a huge draw for visitors who take in the mountain air and views from numerous overlooks and hiking trails along its route. The park service estimates that nearly 16.8 million people visited the parkway last year, spending nearly $1.4 billion in nearby communities.

The National Park Service has reopened U.S. 441, also known as Newfound Gap Road, which runs through Great Smoky Mountains National Park between Cherokee, North Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. As on the parkway, commercial vehicles are prohibited on U.S. 441 through the park.

This story was originally published October 3, 2024 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Tropical Storm Helene closed the most famous road in Western North Carolina."

Richard Stradling

The News & Observer

919-829-4739

Richard Stradling covers transportation for The News & Observer. Planes, trains and automobiles, plus ferries, bicycles, scooters and just plain walking. He’s been a reporter or editor for 38 years, including the last 26 at The N&O. 919-829-4739, rstradling@newsobserver.com.