Hartford rafting companies gear up for peak season after Hurricane Helene
It has been nearly 8 months since the hurricane devastated the community, and they said this is one of the first steps in bringing tourism back to the area. After losing nearly everything, Olwen Claiborne at Smoky Mountain Outdoors said they are ready to take people back out on the Pigeon River.
'We didn't know if it was going to be possible to recover from that flood,' she said. 'This property that we're on right now was completely destroyed, and in a few short months, we've got all of our public and guest experience buildings back up.'
London, Kentucky couple recounts huddling in basement as tornado destroyed home
Just down the road from them, the Nantahala Outdoor Center, or the NOC, was also devastated by the hurricane.
'It's been a big, big roller coaster for sure,' said NOC's Pigeon River Outpost Manager, John Ortt. 'As best way I can put it is we are in a better place now, mentally, than we've been in some, some time now, several months now, so we're excited.'
Being part of the Smoky Mountain community, the Gatlinburg Convention and Visitors Bureau said rafting groups like these are essential for tourism, and bringing the economy back to what it was.
'We are known for our outdoor activities,' said Gatlinburg CVB public communications manager, Caroline Bean. 'With this being right down the road and having this opportunity to look to the mountains and to really see the growth and see the natural beauty that we have surrounding us, just, you know, right outside of town is really great, and might not think of it as Sevier County, but these are all of our mountains,'
As a raft guide himself, Andy Gallatin said while the Pigeon River hasn't changed much, his community has.
'I grew up around this area, so there's a lot of emotions everything around it,' he said. 'But the river was a huge concern for us, where we were going to be able to work, but the community was another one who has always supported us.'
Vols star Zakai Zeigler sues NCAA, seeking to play 5th season on Rocky Top
But now that the river is open, they are ready to take on a season like never before.
'The biggest thing that we want to see is people to come rafting, we need it and they'll have a great time,' said Claiborne.
However, she said there is still work to be done. Specifically, they are waiting for repairs to Interstate 40 between the Tennessee and North Carolina border to be completed before they can fully return to normal.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
7 days ago
- The Hill
Tennessee theme park named best in US – above Disney, Universal: Tripadvisor awards
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (WATE) — As Dollywood continues to welcome visitors for its 40th year of operation, the Pigeon Forge-based theme park has once again been recognized as one of the most popular theme parks in the world. Tripadvisor officials named Dollywood the number one theme park in the U.S. as part of its 2025 Travelers' Choice Best of the Best Awards. This marks the third time in the last four years that the park has garnered the top spot. See the full top 10 below: Dollywood (Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Magic Kingdom Park (Bay Lake, Fla.) Knoebels Amusement Resort (Elysburg, Pa.) Disney's Hollywood Studios (Bay Lake, Fla.) Universal Islands of Adventure (Orlando, Fla.) Fun Spot America (Kissimmee, Fla.) LEGOLAND California (Carlsbad, Calif.) Universal Studios Florida (Orlando, Fla.) Silver Dollar City (Branson, Mo.) Whale's Tale Waterpark (Lincoln, N.H.) See the complete list on the Tripadvisor website. Dollywood was also the only U.S.-based theme park to make the top 15 of Tripadvisor's 2025 worldwide rankings, coming in at No. 11 on that list. The 165-acre theme park is co-owned by Dolly Parton's entertainment company, Dolly Parton Productions, and Herschend Family Entertainment. Annual attendance regularly eclipses two million visitors, according to Dollywood is the largest employer in Sevier County and a 2021 study by the Tennessee Department of Transportation found that the park had an annual direct economic impact of $1.8 billion. While Parton famously does not ride roller coasters, the park has consistently added new attractions for visitors to enjoy. 'If I get on that thing, you'd find my wigs on one of those trees,' she joked in 2023 about the new 'Big Bear Mountain' roller coaster that can reach speeds up to 48 mph. Park officials revealed ahead of the 2025 season that plans are in the works for a new ride that is the 'biggest, most ambitious and possibly the most expensive project that the park has undertaken.' While project details have not yet been revealed, they said that visitors will 'take flight' in 2026. The awards are based on traveler reviews and ratings during a 12-month period. Travelers' Choice Best of the Best award winners are among the top 1 percent of listings, according to Tripadvisor. 'We don't provide the best guest experience in the country to try to win these awards,' said Dollywood Parks & Resorts President Eugene Naughton in a statement. 'We do it because it is the right thing to do. Our guests have options on where they can spend their time, and when they choose to visit us, we want to give them a world-class experience.' 'This award is humbling though, because it is derived from real reviews left by our actual guests describing their time here at our parks and resorts,' he added.
Yahoo
05-08-2025
- Yahoo
Arteris To Provide FlexGen Smart NoC IP In Next-Generation AMD AI Chiplet Designs
Arteris' FlexGen smart NoC IP will be utilized by AMD in semiconductor designs to enable improved product performance and efficiency. CAMPBELL, Calif., Aug. 04, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a market reshaped by the compute demands of AI, Arteris, Inc. (Nasdaq: AIP), a leading provider of semiconductor system IP for accelerating system-on-chip (SoC) creation, today announced AMD (Nasdaq: AMD), a global leader in high-performance and adaptive computing, has licensed FlexGen network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP for its next generation of AI chiplet design. FlexGen, Arteris' smart NoC IP technology, will provide high-performance data transport in AMD chiplets powering AI across the company's broad portfolio which spans from data centers to edge and end devices. The strategic combination and interoperability of Arteris' FlexGen NoC IP with the AMD Infinity Fabric™ interconnect underscores the increasing complexity of modern SoCs and chiplet-based architectures, which now require multiple highly specialized interconnects or NoCs to efficiently meet the demands of modern electronic systems. 'We are excited to collaborate and expand our relationship with AMD, a company recognized globally for its innovation in high performance computing,' said K. Charles Janac, president and CEO of Arteris. 'With modern chiplets each having between 5 and 20 interconnect networks for data transport, our FlexGen NoC IP will work hand in hand with AMD's Infinity Fabric to accelerate the performance and scalability required by today's most demanding and diverse applications. This latest engagement with AMD exemplifies the transformative impact of Arteris' NoC technology in delivering next-generation silicon solutions for a wide range of markets from the data center to the edge.' 'AMD is driving innovations that scale AI from cloud to client by continually developing leadership computing technologies and best-in-class IP,' said Mydung Pham, corporate vice president silicon design engineering at AMD. 'Integrating Arteris' FlexGen NoC IP technology into a range of AMD chiplets, we can automate interconnect configuration and enable seamless connectivity among SoC components while strengthening the best end-to-end AI compute portfolio in the industry.' Arteris is an industry leader in flexible and configurable network-on-chip IP technology. FlexGen, Arteris' latest NoC IP innovation, is specifically designed to make designing SoCs more efficient and to optimize wire length, reduce latency, and improve power efficiency, addressing the communication and performance needs of increasingly complex multi-die and chiplet-based designs. FlexGen can be utilized as an independent interconnect solution or in combination with proprietary interconnect technology to accelerate design iterations and time to market schedules. Arteris continues to revolutionize SoC and chiplet performance with innovative technology. FlexGen smart NoC IP leverages AI automation to enhance design productivity through streamlined iteration cycles, and position companies to address the complexities of today's computing systems while dreaming up what comes next. Learn more at About Arteris Arteris is a global leader in system IP used in semiconductors to accelerate the creation of high-performance, power-efficient silicon. Arteris network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP and system-on-chip (SoC) integration automation software are used by the world's top semiconductor and technology companies to improve overall performance, engineering productivity, reduce risk, lower costs, and bring complex designs to market faster. Learn more at © 2004-2025 Arteris, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Arteris, Arteris IP, the Arteris IP logo, and the other Arteris marks found at are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arteris, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Media Contact:Gina JacobsArteris+1 408 560 3044newsroom@ This press release was published by a CLEAR® Verified in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
02-08-2025
Trump's long history of bashing jobs report numbers dates back to 2016: Analysis
President Donald Trump's history of criticizing the Bureau of Labor Statistics' jobs report has surfaced in the wake of his decision to fire commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday. Trump's public frustrations with the economics and statistics agency appear to date back to his 2016 presidential campaign. "Don't believe those phony numbers," then-candidate Trump said in his New Hampshire victory speech during his first campaign for the White House. Last August, Trump claimed without evidence that former President Joe Biden's administration was "caught fraudulently manipulating" job statistics, when the agency publicly disclosed that the economy created fewer than 818,000 jobs between April of 2023 and March of 2024 than initial estimates suggested. "There's never been any revision like this," Trump said at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Aug. 21, 2024. "They wanted it to come out after the election, but somehow it got leaked," he claimed at the time. Trump did not provide evidence that the information publicly disclosed by the agency was leaked. Then-Labor Secretary Julie Su in November 2024 defended the figures, and also suggested the numbers were impacted by Hurricane Helene's impact on the southeastern United States, and labor strikes. "The labor market remains very strong, and this shows what happens when you have a president and a vice president who are fighting for workers every single day," Su said at the time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses several surveys for estimating employment levels in the U.S. and revisions are common. Every monthly Jobs Report has a blurb at the end that updates the figures from the previous two months based on new data. The revision that Trump was referencing was made public on Aug. 21, and updated with final figures in February 2025, according to the BLS website. The same downward revisions also took place during Trump's first term, under then-BLS commissioner William W. Beach. The agency determined 518,000 fewer jobs were created in March 2019 than it had initially reported. Alternatively, Trump had no complaints about the jobs report produced under McEntarfer -- a Biden appointee -- right before the 2024 election, which showed the U.S. gained 12,000 jobs in October. The then-candidate referenced the low numbers while criticizing the Biden-Harris administration at a rally in Milwaukee. "They did 12,000 jobs," Trump said to boos at the rally on Nov. 1. "It's hundreds of thousands of jobs less than it should be," he added. Trump was also quick to embrace the jobs reports as president -- when they were favorable. In March 2017 -- when the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 235,000 jobs the prior month -- then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had full faith in the positive report, despite calling it "phony" in the past. "I talked to the president prior to this and he said to quote him very clearly: 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now,'" Spicer said to reporters at the time. Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer on Friday came after the report found the U.S. had added 73,000 jobs in July, according to data from the BLS. The figure marked a slowdown from 147,000 jobs added in the previous month. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%, keeping it at near-historic lows, according to the report. The report provided new estimates for two previous months, significantly dropping the government's estimate of jobs added in May and June. The fresh data indicated a notable slowdown in hiring as Trump's tariffs took hold over recent months. Trump criticized McEntarfer over the revisions, saying without evidence that the revisions suggested jobs statistics had been "manipulated." ABC News has reached out to McEntarfer for a comment. The Trump administration described the downward revisions as an unwelcome sign for the U.S. economy but did not dispute the data. "Obviously, they're not what we want to see," Stephen Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on Friday morning. Asked by reporters as he departed the White House on Friday about the reason for McEntarfer's firing, Trump said he believes the economy is doing well and claimed the latest jobs numbers were "phony." "I believe the numbers were phony just like they were before the election, and there were other times," Trump said, pointing to a previous revision in the jobs numbers last year that he claimed, without evidence, was an attempt to benefit Democrats heading into the election. He said this despite using the numbers as a talking point in his campaign.
