CHIMNEY ROCK, N.C.—“Chimney Rock is gone.”
That’s how an exasperated resident described the scene in video footage hours after Hurricane Helene swept through western North Carolina on Sept. 27, 2024.
With incredible force, raging water strewn with debris had raced down Main Street in this mountain village along the Rocky Broad River.
Peter O’Leary remembers the scenes of destruction in the hours and days after the disaster struck. He is the mayor of Chimney Rock and operates Bubba O’Leary’s General Store on Main Street with his wife.
“Most of these people here, if you look around, almost all of them are from somewhere else. They came here and fell in love with it. It gets ahold of you,” he told The Epoch Times earlier this month.
“Everything you take for granted has been washed away, literally. But we’ll recover. We’ll be back, and new memories will be built here.
“There will be better days. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have hope. You can’t overcome something like this without hope.”
Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane and arrived in western North Carolina a day later. It left a swath of destruction throughout the Southeast extending to eastern Tennessee.
Flooding in western North Carolina eclipsed records that had stood for more than a century. The French Broad River in Asheville peaked at 24.67 feet, surpassing the previous high water mark of 23.1 feet from July 1916.
Just before Helene hit, storms drenched Asheville and surrounding towns.
In Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, a wall of water rushed down the river, erasing many of the structures along Main Street in Chimney Rock and straining the dam that holds back Lake Lure.
Located about 25 miles southeast of Asheville, Chimney Rock is home to Chimney Rock State Park, one of North Carolina’s first tourist attractions.
Lake Lure is a historic town where outdoor enthusiasts flock to the namesake body of water and stay in cabins, cottages, and the Lake Lure Inn. A large portion of the 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing” was filmed there.
The two communities are within walking distance to one another and joined by a bridge across the Broad River in the mountains of Rutherford County.
Buildings Washed Away
When floodwater plowed through, it carried buildings and their contents, slamming everything against a concrete bridge between Chimney Rock and Lake Lure.The bridge across the river leading to Chimney Rock State Park was washed away, as were most of the private bridges connecting roads and houses.
On Lake Lure, floodwater relocated the marina docks and boats that were moored there. The boats wound up on top of piles of debris on the lake, including many of the remains swept in from Chimney Rock.
Faith-Based Volunteers Offer Hope
O’Leary says he is confident that the village will thrive again this year because of help from private organizations, most of which are faith-based nonprofits.Spokes of Hope is a disaster response Christian nonprofit based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The organization was launched in 2018 after Hurricane Florence struck the region.
Three days after Helene hit, members of Spokes of Hope arrived in western North Carolina. Their path led to Chimney Rock, where the group remains.
“When I first arrived here, I stood at the top of the street and looked down and saw all of the destruction,” Spokes of Hope founder Shane Zoccole told The Epoch Times.
“I questioned myself. I questioned God, I thought it was just too much. The silt and sand were around three feet tall in the roads. It was overwhelming.”
The volunteers’ spirits were lifted when 640 soldiers from the 101st Airborne arrived, Zoccole said.
“We all worked on getting the mud out. It was two feet above floor level in buildings. Now, the inside of buildings have walls and floors. They are getting closer to being ready to be open again. What was once overwhelming is now inspiring. This town is going to recover. Hope is not lost here,” Zoccole said.
Southwestern Ohio Response to Disaster (SWORD) is part of Nazarene Missions International. Ed Dyer is director of the organization, which is helping recovery efforts in western North Carolina and flood-ravaged areas in Kentucky.
Opening in Time for Summer Tourists
Merchants depend on the thousands of tourists who visit Chimney Rock and shop and eat in the village, O’Leary said.Around 400,000 visitors flock to Chimney Rock State Park annually, he said.
“Everything on the river from here to Lake Lure was destroyed or severely damaged,” O’Leary said, standing in front of his general store. An attached building where he had sold outfitting equipment and supplies is now an empty space.
“There were seven businesses here that are just completely gone. In total, we had 46 businesses in town. We lost 15, so 30 percent of our businesses are no longer here,” O’Leary said, adding that many houses and private bridges were also destroyed.
O’Leary said the village is striving to open some businesses by Memorial Day, around the same time the state of North Carolina hopes to re-open Chimney Rock State Park.
“We just can’t afford not to be open. We’re all small business owners, None of us can afford to go through a summer without income,” he said.
North Carolina Department of Transportation engineers are working to restore access to Chimney Rock State Park.
The engineers are exploring options for temporary structures to connect U.S. 64/74A and Chimney Rock State Park Road by the time the park opens, which would serve as a temporary pathway and a needed economic boost.
A Rich Tourist History
Many families in Chimney Rock have lived in the village for decades, O’Leary said.In the late 1800s, a family began charging visitors a quarter for a horseback ride up the mountain. Chimney Rock became one of North Carolina’s first tourist attractions when Dr. Lucius B. Morse bought 64 acres of Chimney Rock Mountain with his twin brothers in 1902.
Morse had been a practicing physician in Missouri until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was advised to seek a less-crowded and healthier climate for a complete recovery, which led him to western North Carolina.
Morse envisioned a resort and a lake, and over the next 20 years, Chimney Rock Mountain, Inc. acquired thousands of acres in the surrounding area.
They built a hydroelectric dam on the Rocky Broad River, which formed Lake Lure. The town of Lake Lure was incorporated in 1927.
Lake Lure covers 720 acres and has a shoreline of almost 27 miles, and a seven-acre island. The Lake Lure Inn was built in 1927 and has hosted dignitaries like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Calvin Coolidge, and author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Actors Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey stayed at the inn when “Dirty Dancing” was filmed.
The historic lodge—which includes the main inn, a motel, and three cabins—did not sustain significant damage from the disaster, said Ken Floyd, general manager of the Lake Lure Inn.
However, any business tied to the fall leaf viewing season that draws thousands of tourists was impacted by the hurricane, he said.
The Lake Lure Inn has housed contractors, government agency workers, volunteers from organizations, and FEMA-paid guests displaced by Helene.
When the storm hit, the inn was hosting a wedding. The guests stayed and the wedding was held with a limited staff because “everyone was already there and they couldn’t go anywhere,” Floyd said.
From Cleanup to Construction
The recovery in Chimney Rock has shifted from cleanup to construction. From sunrise to sunset, volunteers are doing carpentry in the restaurants and shops along Main Street, accompanied by the sound of heavy equipment operating along the river and roadways.“We felt joy when the cleanup phase evolved to a construction site,” Zoccole said. “Everything you see here is free—the materials, the hands, the volunteers. We’ve had volunteers from 42 states. It’s beautiful to see.”
O’Leary saw the videos and news reports in the immediate aftermath of Helene claiming that Chimney Rock was “wiped off the map.”
He said he is hopeful that an abundance of videos and news outlets report about the region’s return.
“We have to show everybody that Chimney Rock is back,” O’Leary said. “We want people to see that we overcame all of the destruction and that we’re rebuilding and we’re still here.”
