North Carolina community marks Helene recovery milestone with groundbreaking ceremony
High Rock Acres community members celebrated the start of road repair and recovery eight months after Hurricane Helene. The Black Mountain community was cut off for more than a week after the storm.
By Neydja Petithomme
Click here for updates on this story
BLACK MOUNTAIN, North Carolina (WLOS) — A Black Mountain community held a Road to Recovery Groundbreaking Ceremony on Tuesday, June 3, marking a big step forward for the area eight months after Hurricane Helene.
Paul Hensen, president of High Rock Acres Road Maintenance Association (HRA RMA), said Tuesday’s event was about celebrating moving forward.
“It was traumatic. It took a long time for people to recover from the event, now we want to celebrate because now we’re moving forward with an actual recovery,” Hensen said. “We’re in the construction phase. This will take about six months, and we’re going to have to tear down hills and put culverts into the ground.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony took place at the base of the main hill on NC Highway 9 in Black Mountain.
Melinda Halford described the challenges the community faced in the storm’s aftermath.
“All the communications were down,” Halford said. “We had folks who were on medications that they didn’t have, or we needed to get those people out to other family members.”
With the assistance of FEMA, local leaders, and community members, the long-anticipated reconstruction of the community’s sole access road on High Rock Acres Road is moving forward.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
