When Hickory Nut Gorge was doused with an onslaught of rain over Memorial Day weekend, Gerton resident Alan MacNair said it was hard not to think about Hurricane Helene.
Rainwater overwhelmed the ditches and culverts near his home on Bearwallow Mountain Road that weekend, washing out part of the gravel road and making it impassable for about four days. The flash flood came nowhere close to the devastation of Helene, which brought widespread destruction to the roads, utilities and properties in the area. Still, MacNair said it felt like a setback.
“I was surprised to see the road washed out again, even though they did get it repaired fast,” MacNair told BPR, adding that it was “frustrating to see all the work that they had done but still that didn't quite fix the problem.”
MacNair’s property in Gerton sits against the steep wall of the Eastern Continental Divide. So when heavy rain comes, it flows fast and furiously into the narrow valleys lower down. On Memorial Day, rainfall totals reached as high as 10 inches in some locations.
It was one of the first major weather events Hickory Nut Gorge had seen since Helene struck in September 2024, and it exposed the challenges of rebuilding roads and drainage systems in steep, crumbly terrain, as well as the emotional fatigue residents are still carrying from the lingering Helene damage.
Brandon Davis, owner of 3B’s Inn in Gerton, saw water pummel a property he had only recently finished repairing after Helene. And in Edneyville, homeowner Helen Pace found water in her basement again after days of rain swelled the creek beside her house.
“The whole thing was very similar to Helene,” Pace said, adding that it was “a very weird sensation to feel like we were revisiting all of that.”
Culverts are struggling to keep up with new landscape
Mike Patton, an engineer with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, maintains that much of the region came through this storm relatively well, with crews quickly restoring access where roads were closed. At the same time, he acknowledged that the storm did expose culverts and ditches as vulnerabilities in a post-Helene landscape.
Helene stripped vegetation from slopes and drainage areas, which has made it easier for sediment to wash into pipes and ditches during heavy rain, he said.
“So any heavy rain brings down a lot of silt and sediment which clogs the pipes, which then causes the water to run out and across the road — and causes ditches to overflow and just generally messes everything up,” Patton said.
The Memorial Day storm hit while a permanent culvert was still under construction near MacNair’s neighborhood.
“Then this storm kind of tore it all to pieces and sent us back to square one,” Patton explained. “So we're currently having to take that culvert apart, take it out and reassess its condition and hopefully put it back and reinstall it.”
The damage reinforced MacNair’s concern about ditch and culvert maintenance. He said he has seen water leave the ditches and run down the road during heavy rain.
“I think they’ve done a good job fixing it up, but it’s the last 5% that’s really critical that they get that right,” MacNair said. “Otherwise, it’s going to wash out completely again.”
Patton said NCDOT maintenance crews try to keep culverts and ditches clear, but the process is largely complaint-driven. The department relies heavily on residents to identify blockages because crews cannot keep eyes on every road and drainage pipe.
“A lot of times, the public is our eyes and ears about what needs to get fixed and what’s wrong,” he said. “It would be an impossible task for us to monitor the mileage of roads that NCDOT maintains. And so we do rely on the public a lot.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore”
Emma Churchman, a Gerton resident, said new flood damage adds to a growing fatigue, after more than 20 months of unreliable roads.
"It's physically and mentally and emotionally exhausting to be in the midst of this,” Churchman, told BPR in a recent interview.
Churchman drives through U.S. 74A and U.S. 64 on a regular basis. The battered thoroughfare carves through mountainous terrain and serves as a primary connector for the communities of Gerton, Bat Cave, Chimney Rock, Lake Lure and Edneyville.
After Helene, some residents in the gorge were cut off from roads entirely and had to carry supplies across makeshift crossings. Access has improved dramatically since then, but daily travel still means navigating a labyrinth of closures, one-way sections and unpredictable waits at temporary traffic signals.
“I had a moment right after Memorial Day where I said to my husband, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s too tiring, just to get in and out of our community on a regular basis,’” Churchman reflected.
Graham Sturgis, another Gerton resident, said the recent damage also sparks uncertainty for him about the long-term resilience of the roads.
The day after the recent flash flood, Sturgis had a doctor’s appointment in Asheville — typically a half-hour drive. But closures on Bearwallow Mountain Road and Charlotte Highway ballooned his trip to an hour and a half.
“There are three ways to get out of Gerton,” he said. “And so we can get stranded very quickly and that's what happened with Helene, because if any of those are blocked or all of them were blocked out, we can't go anywhere. And that means that ambulances and fire trucks and medical appointments, you know, can't be accomplished.”
A long road ahead
All of these factors make for a tough balancing act for NCDOT. The agency is tasked with restoring road access quickly, while also rebuilding them so they’re strong enough to withstand the next major storm.
Right now, many of the roads are temporary fixed.
Patton is helping oversee more than $200 million in Helene-related road repairs in his division alone. Most of those projects, in an area that covers Polk County and half of Henderson County, are expected to continue through 2028.
“One of the complications after Helene is that a lot of these roads were completely destroyed,” he said.
The 2.5-mile stretch between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock, for instance, was largely wiped out during the storm. The new, temporary road lies at a low point of the gorge — carved out over centuries by the Rocky Broad River — and weaves precariously through massive boulders, patches of private land and a slew of damaged buildings.
“That road had to be completely redesigned from the ground up,” Patton said. “And those plans, the engineering behind that, the contract documents, that just doesn't appear overnight.”
As NCDOT moves toward these permanent repairs, they’re also trying to design them with long-term resilience in mind. Plans include regrading roads, restoring more vegetation along stream banks, and building stronger retaining structures to protect vulnerable sections from erosion and flooding.
“We’re kind of tired of fixing the same spots over and over again,” he said. “And so the designs this time around are designed to be much more resilient and much more long term.”
That work will require residents to live with construction, closures and unpredictable travel for several more years.
“I get it,” he said. “Their frustrations are duly noted and warranted, and we’re working hard every day to eventually reach a point where that’s not a problem anymore.”
