The extent of the destruction in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene is still becoming apparent. The focus remains on finding people who are missing, restoring power, and delivering supplies like food and water. But some are also worried about the economic blow to the area at the start of the busy fall tourism season. Boone Mayor Tim Futrelle said this last weekend:
"Never thought I'd see a river running down King Street, but unfortunately, that is exactly what we saw. And just thinking a lot about our small business owners and our folks that are the backbone of our community that help keep us thriving, we're going to need a lot of help to support them as well to recover and rebuild."
For more, Morning Edition host Marshall Terry is joined by Tony Mecia, of the Charlotte Ledger business newsletter, for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So, it’s obviously still very early. And, as I said priorities are more on making sure people are safe and have the supplies they need. But this is typically the busy season for tourists in the mountains. Any idea what kind of immediate economic impact the region is looking at here, at the start of leaf season, apple-picking times and fall getaways?
Tony Mecia: I mean, it's certainly going to be significant. You know, a lot of western North Carolina is very tourism-dependent. And now, you have the problems of getting there, you know — the roads. The people there who are working in the tourism industry, they have their own problems to contend with. It's going to be a serious problem. It's going to be a significant economic impact for sure.
Terry: And we're seeing photos of Chimney Rock's business district wiped out. Airbnbs, river-guiding businesses all wiped out. Not to mention the roads to get there. As you mentioned, tourism is really the lifeblood of a lot of the region that we're talking about. Do you have a sense of what the longer-term impacts might be from all this destroyed infrastructure?
Mecia: You know, you look at Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans in 2005 — also a very tourist-dependent city. It took years really to come back because it takes a while to fix all of the problems that are there. And in the meantime, you know, people, people stay away. I mean, the economies of a lot of counties in western North Carolina, they are dependent on tourism. There are other industries, you know, there are manufacturing plants — a lot of those incidentally happen to be near water, which could obviously be a problem. And then you also have retailers. Walmarts tend to be big employers in some of these really small counties. So, you know, all of those are going to feel those effects. It's going to take a while to kind of dig out from a lot of this.
Terry: What about flood insurance? I know not very many people have it in the mountains, understandably. Is this going to be an even more devastating economic blow for homeowners there and also business owners?
Mecia: Yeah, I saw some statistic that just 1% of homeowners in Buncombe County — I think it was — have flood insurance. Certainly not having that insurance is going to be a problem for rebuilding. Although, it does sound like the federal government and the state government are looking into relief packages that could maybe, you know, help with some of that.
Terry: Now, in addition to tourism, there are also important industries concentrated there, like Christmas tree farms, timber, even a high-quality quartz mine. Any sense of the impact to those other industries?
Mecia: Yeah, from what I understand, it's still a little bit early to say — as some of the damage is still being scoped out. And just to see how bad it was there has been a lot of attention paid to these ... these quartz facilities in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, that produce quartz that goes into semiconductors.
You know, those are offline. Some reports have suggested it's going tank the world economy or something like that. I think that's probably a little bit overblown. But yeah, Christmas tree farms, like you mentioned — North Carolina is the number two Christmas-tree-producing state. Might not be a stretch to think that Christmas trees might be more expensive this year. They've been going up in price the last few years anyway. But yeah, certainly could be some supply problems. I mean, I think it's still a little bit premature to know the effects. But, those certainly wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility.
This transcript was edited for clarity.
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