Access to the stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway nearest to Asheville has been restored after a weeks-long Hurricane Helene recovery effort, the National Park Service said Wednesday.
The newly reopened section of the scenic roadway is 11 miles long. It runs from Milepost 382.5, near Tunnel Road, to Milepost 393.6, near NC Route 191 and the North Carolina Arboretum.
Like much of the region, the Blue Ridge Parkway sustained significant damage due to the historic storm. National Park Service staff and contractors have been working to repair structural damage and clear away downed trees, and sections of the roadway have been gradually reopened in recent weeks. While the Virginia section of the parkway is now fully open, more than 150 miles in North Carolina remain inaccessible.
"With today’s opening, we have now restored access to over 310 miles of the Parkway,” parkway superintendent Tracy Swartout said in a statement. “Incident teams and contractors have been working on this section for over a month, with large numbers of damaged trees, vast amounts of tree debris in the roadway, and heavy equipment at work simultaneously throughout the corridor.”
Stay in the loop with The Asheville Explainer, BPR's weekly newsletter for Asheville and Buncombe County.
In the five weeks since Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina, workers have moved more than 350,000 cubic feet of debris from the parkway’s Asheville corridor – an amount that could fill nearly 150 shipping containers, according to the National Park Service.
With the section’s reopening, the Asheville Visitor Center will resume operations Wednesday. The Folk Art Center is expected to reopen on Saturday. Trails in the region are open, but visitors are urged to use “extreme caution” due to storm-related hazards, the Park Service said.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is among the most-visited tourist destinations in the country. The parkway saw a total of 16.7 million visitors in 2023 — more than the number of visitors to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks combined.
Fall is typically one of the most popular times for tourists as the Blue Ridge Mountains are awash in color. The damage to the parkway and the region, as well as the continued lack of clean running water in Asheville, has forced many would-be visitors to cancel their trips – although counties further west have sought to attract those travelers, and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority has invited visitors to return to Asheville while the recovery effort remains underway.
