North Carolina lawmaker warns Hurricane Helene recovery could take ‘years’

Western North Carolina could be looking at a long recovery from Hurricane Helene, Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., warned early Monday.

“Some were affected more than others, but getting to them, getting people out of their homes or their driveways washed away, it’s a very, very difficult problem, and really we’re now still in a rescue mode with so many individuals,” he told FOX Business’ Cheryl Casone on “Mornings with Maria.”

“The waters are slowly going down, but it’s going to take years for the western part of the state to recover.”

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Rain pooled in the valleys, flooded rivers and washed away homes last week, including in the community of Chimney Rock, southeast of Asheville, which was one of many cities destroyed by catastrophic flooding that washed away parts of the Tar Heel State.

The landlocked mountainous western region of the state dealt with unprecedented damage as rain drained from higher elevations into valleys.

“Almost the western third of the state is absolutely devastated. When we get storms here in the east [part of the state], we have farmland, we have a lot of open land and the water gets dissipated. Over in the west, there’s so many mountains that drain the water into gullies, into rivers that are at the bottom of the hill of the mountain. The waters just rise very quickly,” Murphy explained.

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“What you’re seeing now, Asheville, a lot of the other smaller towns are devastated, absolutely inundated with water. A lot of them are right next to rivers, so this is cataclysmic. This is horrible. And a lot of the folks are stranded. They can’t get another driveway. There are no roads to get to. It is an exceedingly difficult situation over there in the west.”

Helene made its way to North Carolina after slamming Florida’s West Coast as a Category 4 storm and unleashing its wrath on parts of Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia. 

Hundreds of thousands of people are still without power in the region and at least 101 deaths have been reported.  

FOX Weather contributed to this report.