Nine months after Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina, the small mountain communities along the French Broad River are still struggling with an agonizing recovery. 

According to CNN, several towns remain scarred by debris piles and damaged buildings, the result of damaging winds and unprecedented flooding across hundreds of miles in the region. 

What's happening?

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, 2024, as a Category 4 storm, making its way toward the Blue Ridge Mountains the following day. The storm caused at least 107 reported deaths in North Carolina and major destruction across several towns, with floodwaters reaching record-breaking levels. 

"The water came up 27 vertical feet," Korey Hampton, who owns an outdoor adventure company in Marshall, told CNN. "That means sometimes hundreds of horizontal feet where there was floodwater."

Local rescue volunteers spent days pulling people from second-story windows, then weeks recovering bodies from the debris. 

The first homes have yet to be rebuilt nearly six months after the disaster, according to state lawmakers, who expressed their frustration with the slow pace of recovery efforts. 

Hampton told CNN that the healing process has been difficult: "It's hard to switch back to the, 'Oh, everything is fun. No big deal.' … I'm getting there, but it's going to take a while."

Why is the ongoing devastation important?

Tropical storms are increasingly threatening communities that have historically felt safe from a hurricane's impact. 

Scientists agree that human-induced overheating of our planet directly contributes to making storms like Helene even more destructive, with Climate Central research showing that climate change increased the intensity of most Atlantic hurricanes between 2019 and 2023. Thirty hurricanes during this time reached intensities around one category higher than expected. 

Warmer sea-surface temperatures intensify tropical storm wind speeds, giving them the potential to deliver even more damage upon landfall. Over the 39-year period from 1979 to 2017, the number of major hurricanes increased, while the number of smaller hurricanes decreased. 

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Furthermore, higher sea levels can push more water inland during hurricane-related storm surges. The average global sea level has already risen by over half a foot since 1880, as detailed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

What's being done about hurricane resilience?

Gov. Josh Stein has announced a new program to repair or rebuild homes in western North Carolina that were damaged by the storm, and the "Rediscover the Unforgettable" tourism initiative aims to bring visitors back to the affected areas. 

On the individual level, supporting renewable energy initiatives and transitioning your home to cleaner energy sources can help lessen the impact that fossil fuels and pollution have on increasing storm damage.  

Be sure your family has an emergency plan for future extreme weather events, even if you're located in an area that has historically been considered safe.

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