Hurricane Helene Recovery – Year 1 Photos
For the first week or two after Hurricane Helene hit the mountains, the response was simple and pure: neighbors helping neighbors. Communities were cut off without roads or communication or electricity. We did what we could with what we had. We unburied our homes, cleared driveways, checked to see if everyone was OK next door. As trees and power lines were removed from roads, it became possible to work together and respond where the need was greatest.
Community volunteers organized first where they were already used to organizing: volunteer fire and rescue departments, food banks, and other local volunteer-powered organizations like Wild South. Within days, Wild South was cooperating with the US Forest Service and local agencies to restore access and bring medical care to those cut off in remote valleys and Forest inholdings.
More roads were cleared. Now it was possible for Wild South volunteers outside the core impact area to come in and help. The response was overwhelming, and for the next several months we focused out in the communities on which National Forest conservation success ultimately depends.
The nature of natural disasters is that near-term hardships are always followed by longer-term hardships. Businesses close, and many can’t reopen. Unemployment and homelessness surge. In the mountain region, outdoors is big business, a multi-billion dollar sector that dwarfs the value of timber harvest. But with National Forest trails and rivers devastated by Helene, the economic impact has been sudden and severe.
To get economically-critical National Forest infrastructure back up and running, Wild South volunteers completed trail damage surveys and were planning 2025 projects well before the end of 2024. Throughout 2025, Wild South volunteers and our newly-formed trails strike team have coordinated with the US Forest Service in a triage process to bring important trails back online as quickly as possible. Hundreds and hundreds of trees have been cleared, and in extremely rugged and challenging conditions. Reroutes have been put in place around landslides. Volunteers have even played a critical role in recovering important Forest roads.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, Wild South volunteers, trails strike teams, and river strike teams will be an important part of post-Helene economic recovery in North Carolina and Tennessee. We’ll see that National Forests and National Forest communities will continue to depend on each other just as they always have. Community recovery and Forest recovery will go hand in hand, and together demonstrate Southern Appalachian resilience.