When Helene hit Western North Carolina as a tropical storm on Sept. 27, 2024, it left much of the region in ruins. Chunks of roads disappeared. Towns flooded so severely that years of progress and development were wiped away, literally, overnight. More than 100 people died.
Today, many are still rebuilding, but the going has been slower in some places than others. A year after the storm, The Charlotte Observer visited three areas hit especially hard: Pensacola, Asheville’s River Arts District and Marshall.
Pensacola, Yancey County
Danny Hensley spent years pining to buy the general store that his parents used to take him to, along with the house behind it.
He’d long dreamt of fixing both up and restoring them to their old glory…