
The scars from Hurricane Helene are healing slowly in this Appalachian tourist town
CHIMNEY ROCK VILLAGE, N.C. (AP) — The brightly colored sign along the S-curve mountain road beckons visitors to the Gemstone Mine, the '#1 ATTRACTION IN CHIMNEY ROCK VILLAGE!' But another sign, on the shop's mud-splattered front door, tells a different story.
'We will be closed Thursday 9-26-2024 due to impending weather,' it reads. It promised to reopen the next day at noon, weather permitting.
That impending weather was the remnants of Hurricane Helene. And that reopening still hasn't arrived.
The storm smashed into the North Carolina mountains last September, killing more than 100 people and causing an estimated $60 billion in damage. Chimney Rock, a hamlet of about 140 named for the 535-million-year-old geological wonder that underpins its tourism industry, was hit particularly hard.
Eight months later, the mine, like most of the surviving businesses on the village's quaint Main Street, is still an open construction site. A flashing sign at the guard shack on the town line warns: 'ROAD CLOSED. LOCAL TRAFFIC ONLY.'
Village Mayor Peter O'Leary had optimistically predicted that downtown would open in time for Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer tourist season. He now realizes that was too ambitious.
'We had set that date as a target, early on,' he said, sitting in the still stripped main room of his Bubba O'Leary's General Store. 'But I always try to remind people, you don't always hit the target. Anybody that's shot a gun or bow and arrow knows, you don't always hit the target.'
The Broad River — which gave the restaurants and inns lining its banks their marketable water views — left its course, carving away foundations and sweeping away the bridge to Chimney Rock State Park. O'Leary said about a third of the town's businesses were 'totally destroyed.'
Several are gone for good.
At the north end of town, all that remains of Bayou Billy's Chimney Rock Country Fair amusement park is a pile of twisted metal, tattered awnings and jumbled train cars. A peeling, cracked yellow carousel horse that owner Bill Robeson's own children once rode balances precariously on a debris pile, its mouth agape to the sky.
At 71, Robeson — who also lost a two-story building where he sold popcorn, pizza and souvenir tin cups — said he doesn't have the heart to rebuild.
'We made the dream come true and everything,' said Robeson, who's been coming to Chimney Rock since he was in diapers. 'I hate I had to leave like it was. But, you know, life is short. You just can't ponder over it. You've got to keep going, you know?'
At the other end of town, the Carter Lodge boasted 'BALCONIES OVERLOOKING RIVER.' Much of the back side of the 19-room hotel now dangles in midair, an angry red-brown gash in the soil that once supported it.
Barely a month before Helene, Linda Carter made the last loan payments on repairs from a 100-year flood in 1996. Contractors estimate it will cost $2.6 million to rebuild.
So, the widow said she's waiting to see how much the federal government will offer her to let the lot become a flood-mitigation zone.
'I just don't have it in me,' said Carter, who lived in the hotel. 'I'm 74. I don't want to die and leave my children in debt. I also don't want to go through the pain of rebuilding.'
But others, like Matt Banz, still think Chimney Rock is worth the risk of future heartache.
The Florida native fell in love with a fudge shop here during a vacation more than 30 years ago. Today, he and his family own four businesses in town, including the gem mine and the RiverWatch Bar & Grill.
'The day after the storm, we didn't even question whether we were going to rebuild,' Banz said, with workers rebuilding the riverfront deck on new cement footers. 'We knew right away that we weren't going to let go.'
O'Leary, Banz and others say federal relief has been slow. But volunteers have filled the gaps.
Down the street, Amish workers from Pennsylvania pieced together a mold before pouring a new reinforced foundation for the Broad River Inn, among the oldest businesses in town. The river undermined the back end and obliterated the neighboring miniature golf course.
'We definitely could not have done what we're doing without them, that is for certain,' inn co-owner Kristen Sottile said. 'They have brought so much willpower, hope, as well as many other things to our community.'
The Amish are working in concert with Spokes of Hope, a Christian nonprofit formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, which hit the Carolinas in September 2018.
Jonathan Graef and his siblings bought the Best View Inn in late 2023 and were halfway through renovations when Helene struck. They've been flooded twice since, but the new rafters and framing the Amish workers constructed have held.
'It's really trying to kick us down,' said Graef, whose property borders what is left of the Bayou Billy's park. 'But our spirits are high, our hopes are high and nothing's going to stop us from opening this place.'
Throughout town, the ring of hammers and saws mingles with the sizzle of welding and the rumble of debris-removal trucks.
Workers lay sewer lines. A temporary steel bridge to the state park — replacing the ornate stone and concrete span that washed out — should be ready soon, O'Leary said.
'In a normal year, they easily have 400,000 visitors that come to the park,' he said. 'That's really the draw that brings people here.'
One recent evening, Rose Senehi walked down Main Street, stopping to peer into shop windows to see how much progress had been made.
Twenty-two years ago, the novelist stopped in town to buy an ice cream cone. As she licked, she crossed a small bridge, climbed a rickety staircase to a small house, looked around 'and saw that mountain.'
'Within an hour I signed the contract and bought it. Out of the blue,' she said, her eyes lighting up. 'Never been to this town. But I knew THIS is what I wanted.'
The bridge is gone. So is that ice cream shop. But Senehi said there's more to this place than stores and treats.
'There's something about this area that, it's just compelling. The mountains. The green. It's just beautiful,' she said. 'It'll definitely come back. And it won't be the same; it'll be better.'
O'Leary said he thinks some Main Street businesses will be open sometime this summer. The council is looking for village-owned properties that can be leased or sold to business owners.
'I can see progress on all fronts,' said O'Leary, who came for a park job 35 years ago and never left. But he cautions that recovery will be slow.
'We don't want everybody to come at the same time, but we do want people to visit and be patient with us,' he said. "This is a long rebuild. But I think it's going to be worth it.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Associated Press
7 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Iowa governor rejects GOP bill to increase regulations of Summit's carbon dioxide pipeline
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Wednesday rejected a bill that could have introduced more complications for a massive carbon-capture pipeline project routed across several Midwestern states, issuing a rare veto in the Republican-controlled statehouse. The legislation was designed by Iowa House Republicans to increase regulations of Summit Carbon Solutions' estimated $8.9 billion, 2,500-mile (4,023-kilometer) project that cuts across Iowa and already has an approved permit in the state. But in the Senate, it exposed a rift within the party over how to protect property rights. It also provoked loud opposition from members of Iowa's powerful ethanol industry, which argued the project is essential for Iowa's agricultural dominance, for farmers and for construction jobs. Even with the relief from Reynolds' veto, Summit will likely have to readjust plans after South Dakota's governor signed a ban on the use of eminent domain — the government seizure of private property with compensation — to acquire land for carbon dioxide pipelines. Summit's permit application was also rejected in South Dakota. The project has permit approvals in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota but faces various court challenges. The Iowa bill would have prohibited the renewal of permits for a carbon dioxide pipeline, limited the use of such a pipeline to 25 years and significantly increased the insurance coverage requirements for the pipeline company. Those provisions would likely have made it less financially feasible for a company to build a carbon dioxide pipeline. As the legislative session wound down, a dozen Republican senators insisted their leaders bring the House-approved bill to the floor for a vote after several years of inaction. The stalemate ended in a long and divisive debate among the Iowa Senate's Republican supermajority, with senators openly criticizing one another and exposing the closed-door discussions that got them there. The pipeline's many critics have for years begged lawmakers for action. They accuse Summit of stepping on their property rights and downplaying the safety risks of building the pipeline alongside family homes, near schools and across ranches. Lee Enterprises and The Associated Press reviewed hundreds of cases that reveal the great legal lengths the company went to to get the project built. In South Dakota, in particular, a slew of eminent domain legal actions to obtain land sparked a groundswell of opposition that was closely watched by lawmakers in Iowa as well. But as debate in the state Senate seemed inevitable, dozens of Summit employees and leaders and members of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and labor unions made a big showing as well. The pipeline was proposed to carry carbon emissions from ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota to be stored underground permanently in North Dakota. By lowering carbon emissions from the plants, the pipeline would lower their carbon intensity scores and make them more competitive in the renewable fuels market. The project would also allow ethanol producers and Summit to tap into federal tax credits. Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said in a May 12 statement after the vote that a majority of the Iowa Senate 'turned their back on Iowa agriculture.'


Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Brazil's Supreme Court justices agree to make social media companies liable for user content
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — The majority of justices on Brazil's Supreme Court have agreed to make social media companies liable for illegal postings by their users. Gilmar Mendes on Wednesday became the sixth of the court's 11 justices to vote to open a path for companies like Meta, X and Microsoft to be sued and pay fines for content published by their users. Voting is ongoing but a simple majority is all that is needed for the measure to pass. The ruling will come after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned of possible visa restrictions against foreign officials allegedly involved in censoring American citizens. The only dissenting Brazilian justice so far is André Mendonça and his vote was made public last week. The social media proposal would become law once voting is finished and the result is published. But Brazil's Congress could still pass another law to reverse the measure. The current legislation states social media companies can only be held responsible in those cases if they do not remove hazardous content after a court order.
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Nvidia chief calls AI ‘the greatest equalizer' — but warns Europe risks falling behind
PARIS (AP) — Will artificial intelligence save humanity — or destroy it? Lift up the world's poorest — or tighten the grip of a tech elite? Jensen Huang, the global chip tycoon, offered his opinion on Wednesday: neither dystopia nor domination. AI, he said, is a tool for liberation. Wearing his signature biker jacket and mobbed by fans for selfies, the Nvidia CEO cut the figure of a tech rockstar as he took the stage at VivaTech in Paris. 'AI is the greatest equalizer of people the world has ever created,' Huang said, kicking off one of Europe's biggest technology industry fairs. But beyond the sheeny optics, Nvidia used the Paris summit to unveil a wave of infrastructure announcements across Europe, signaling a dramatic expansion of the AI chipmaker's physical and strategic footprint on the continent. In France, the company is deploying 18,000 of its new Blackwell chips with startup Mistral AI. In Germany, it's building an industrial AI cloud to support manufacturers. Similar rollouts are underway in Italy, Spain, Finland and the U.K., including a new AI lab in Britain. Other announcements include a partnership with AI startup Perplexity to bring sovereign AI models to European publishers and telecoms, a new cloud platform with Mistral AI, and work with BMW and Mercedes-Benz to train AI-powered robots for use in auto plants. The announcements reflect how central AI infrastructure has become to global strategy, and how Nvidia — the world's most valuable chipmaker — is positioning itself as the engine behind it. At the center of the debate is Huang's concept of the AI factory: not a plant that makes goods, but a vast data center that creates intelligence. These facilities train language models, simulate new drugs, detect cancer in scans, and more. Asked if such systems risk creating a 'technological priesthood' — hoarding computing power and stymying the bottom-up innovation that fueled the tech industry for the past 50 years — Huang pushed back. 'Through the velocity of our innovation, we democratize,' he told The Associated Press. 'We lower the cost of access to technology.' As Huang put it, these factories 'reason,' 'plan,' and 'spend a lot of time talking to' themselves, powering everything from ChatGPT to autonomous vehicles and diagnostics. But some critics warn that without guardrails, such all-seeing, self-reinforcing systems could go the way of Skynet in ' The Terminator ' movie — vast intelligence engines that outpace human control. 'Just as electricity powered the last industrial revolution, AI will power the next one,' he said. 'Every country now needs a national intelligence infrastructure.' He added: 'AI factories are now part of a country's infrastructure. That's why you see me running around the world talking to heads of state — they all want AI to be part of their infrastructure. They want AI to be a growth manufacturing industry for them.' Europe, long praised for its leadership on digital rights, now finds itself at a crossroads. As Brussels pushes forward with world-first AI regulations, some warn that over-caution could cost the bloc its place in the global race. With the U.S. and China surging ahead and most major AI firms based elsewhere, the risk isn't just falling behind — it's becoming irrelevant. Huang has a different vision: sovereign AI. Not isolation, but autonomy — building national AI systems aligned with local values, independent of foreign tech giants. 'The data belongs to you,' Huang said. 'It belongs to your people, your country... your culture, your history, your common sense.' But fears over AI misuse remain potent — from surveillance and deepfake propaganda to job losses and algorithmic discrimination. Huang doesn't deny the risks. But he insists the technology can be kept in check — by itself. 'In the future, the AI that is doing the task is going to be surrounded by 70 or 80 other AIs that are supervising it, observing it, guarding it, ensuring that it doesn't go off the rails.' The VivaTech event was part of Huang's broader European tour. He had already appeared at London Tech Week and is scheduled to visit Germany. In Paris, he joined French President Emmanuel Macron and Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch to reinforce his message that AI is now a national priority. — Chan reported from London.