(CNN) – New before-and-after aerial photos paint a grim picture of Hurricane Helene’s devastation in parts of western North Carolina, which have been difficult to access after the storm wiped out the state’s roads and bridges.
The monster Category 4 hurricane left a path of destruction more than 500 miles across the Southeast and has killed more than 200 people, becoming the second-deadliest hurricane to hit the continental US in the United States. last 50 years.
Many of those deaths occurred in North Carolina, where the storm was characterized by prolific rainfall and historic catastrophic flooding.
The storm dropped so much water on the southern Appalachians in a three-day span that it was a once-in-1,000-year rainfall event for the region, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
All that water came down from the mountains, turning the slopes in some places into devastating landslides that ripped houses from their foundations. But in the end, everything ended up in the rivers.
Water levels rose to levels higher than ever before, charting a new course as they washed away dozens of bridges, roads and homes, sending them downstream.
SLIDER 2
(Chimney Rock, North Carolina, before and after Hurricane Helene. Nearmap)
Such was the case in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, which borders the Broad River.
“Everything on either side of the river has disappeared,” said the city’s mayor, Peter O’Leary. “Everything you take for granted was washed away, literally. Every business, every building was destroyed or severely damaged,” O’Leary told CNN affiliate WSOC-TV.
SLIDER 3
(A building in North Carolina was swept away by an overflowing waterway after Helene. Nearmap)
Chimney Rock wasn’t the only one. Even major population centers like Asheville, mistakenly considered a safe haven from extreme events like Helene, made worse by climate change, suffered extensive damage.
The images show house after house partially or completely destroyed by rivers that overflowed their banks and simply created new ones.
They also reveal the ongoing challenges of finding people still missing, when parts of villages simply no longer exist, and the magnitude of the challenge of restoring these places in a landscape that has been completely transformed by nature.
SLIDER 4
(Buildings along a riverbank are washed away after Hurricane Helene. Nearmap)
SLIDER 5
(A river bridge in North Carolina and its road no longer exist after Helene. Nearmap)
SLIDER 6
(A river now roars where there used to be buildings and a bridge in North Carolina. Nearmap)
SLIDER 7
(Nearmap)
