Report from WBTV – Charlotte NC.
Two years post Hurricane Helene, Bat Cave, North Carolina is still crippled from the climate fueled storm’s impacts.
Readers here will vividly remember how Hurricane Helene came ashore, moved hundreds of miles inland and exploded with flooding rains over the “climate haven” mountains of North Georgia and Western North Carolina. The steep hillsides and narrow river valleys turned out to be vulnerable death traps for people living in vulnerable areas.
Many losses were tragically predictable, but some of those affected lived in areas that had not previously flooded.
As recovery has progressed, some local communities are making the same mistakes, as residents economically crippled by the flood have moved to campers and mobile homes, the best shelter they can afford, in some of the most vulnerable areas.
Billions have been spent in recovery, but needed billions more may never come.
Communities like Bat Cave, as related above, have lost crucial tax base that funds critical services like Fire/Rescue, and face an economic death spiral even as road and infrastructure repairs continue.
Part of what made the storm so devastating to the region when it hit, 400 miles inland from where it made landfall, is that the Appalachian Mountains’ typically porous soils were already saturated by recent rainfall. The rainwater hit bedrock and raced down steep mountain slopes like water on a slide. It overran the banks of normally shallow creeks and rivers, carrying the earth above it. One in 4 of those who died from the storm in North Carolina did so because of mud and landslides.
Allowing people to continue to live in locations with severe and repeated flooding is one of several weaknesses reporters at ProPublica have identified while investigating deadly floods.
Many inland areas are still operating with their original flood maps from the 1970s or ’80s. In rural places that have experienced population growth and development since then, the maps don’t account for the way these places have changed. New homes, for example, take up valuable areas where floodwater is supposed to run, displacing water not unlike what happens when adding an ice cube to a glass of water.
Two years after Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina, recovery is far from over.
According to Gov. Stein’s office, North Carolina has committed more than $3 billion to Helene recovery. More than 99% of drinking water systems damaged by the storm have been restored, while more than 99% of affected state roads have reopened.
But Stein says more federal help is needed.
His office is calling on Congress to provide $10 billion for additional recovery work, including damaged homes, businesses, roads, bridges and infrastructure.
“Recovery is a marathon, not a sprint,” the governor’s office said.
The hurricane downed a lot of trees that ended up in the Clinch and tributary streams, causing blockages that made it easier for it to flood the next time heavy rain inundates the region, Young said.
Just five months after Helene, in February 2025, Tazewell County officials faced severe flooding again, leading to a federal disaster declaration. Stream blockages from Helene made the situation much worse, he said.
The Helene impact on Bat Cave is just a more acute version of climate/resilience/cleanup costs rising against a sharp drop in tax revenue. In a lot of coastal communities and peninsular Florida, property values (and their associated taxes) are grinding down more gradually as the hurricane and SLR risks grow. The Haves will be able to take the loss and get the hell out of Dodge while others will believe realtor “it will bounce back” hype and chase the market down.
In places that have desirable features, like parts of coastal Florida, the Haves will also buy up properties when towns get wiped out, because they have the cash and deep pockets to build new, they can afford to pay insurance (if it’s available) or can simply walk from a loss, going to one of their other homes. Back in the economic crash in 2008, the wealthiest were among the most likely to simply walk away from properties, leaving them to the bank to try to sell when property value declines meant the mortgage was suddenly underwater.
No different for when the property is in a location where fire and/or flood risk are increasing, but the view and climate is otherwise nice. Coastal locations are already seeing the dynamic.
Inland locations? If you’re a smaller town that’s simply somewhere in a mountainous area – not as likely to face bidding up against people with cash when you try rebuilding, just as less-desirable coastal communities or towns vulnerable to fire risk will find it hard to get funding to rebuild as costs to maintain services grow while too many of the tax base move out. Recovery funding will probably increasingly go towards bigger population centers, and partly from the economics – replacing two miles of two-lane road that services 50 families or replacing the same that has 300 cars a day costs similarly, but more can pay in on the busier road.
I visited relatives in that same county in April after Helene, and was driving along US 40 where there was massive reconstruction going on alongside the Pigeon River, and that project is still going on and according to reports is going to be continuing into 2029. This one road project is billions of dollars, but it’s for a major interstate.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/traffic/2026/09/24/interstate-40-repairs-hurricane-helene-continue-into-2029-see-progress-gorge/91893485007/