The Blue Ridge Parkway remained closed in all of North Carolina and Virginia this weekend, after Hurricane Helene destroyed and hurled stretches of the road down the mountainside, rangers said Saturday.
Warning drivers to stay off the scenic route, the National Park Service released a photo of the road entirely eroded away near Gooch Gap milepost 336. That’s near Little Switzerland.
The parkway is closed for the foreseeable future, rangers said.
At least 250 National Park Service employees from 32 states and the District of Columbia are assisting Blue Ridge Parkway staff in assessing road damage.
“National Park Service assessment teams are still completing their initial inspections of the parkway, acquiring the data they will need to analyze the full impact of Hurricane Helene,” according to the National Park Service update.
“Based on what the teams have seen so far, significant, and in some cases catastrophic, damage has occurred along the parkway, particularly from milepost 280 to milepost 469.”