CHEROKEE, N.C. — The National Park Service announced that the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia is closed. They said crews are assessing the damage from Helene.
NPS said they had deployed its Eastern Incident Management Team, bringing specialized skills and resources to support the parkway with employee emergency needs, emergency stabilization of affected park resources and damage assessments.
As of Thursday, 250 National Park Service employees from 32 states and the District of Columbia are working with Blue Ridge Parkway staff in the recovery efforts, according to the park.
NPS assessment teams are still finishing their inspections and gathering the data they will need to analyze the full impact of the tropical storm.
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, NPS said.
In the coming weeks, the teams will use the data from their inspections to determine the full extent of the damage including the timeline and cost estimates for repairs.
According to NPS, a reopening date for any section of Blue Ridge in North Carolina has not been made.
In Virginia, damage assessments and clearing debris from the road are almost completed, which will allow a phased reopening in Virginia in the coming days to weeks, NPS said.