CHIMNEY ROCK, N.C. — For nearly two centuries, a natural wonder called Chimney Rock has stood sentry over the tiny town in the Blue Ridge Mountains that bears its name.
Now, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, it looks down upon miles and miles of devastation.
Walking down what’s left of Main Street, the mayor of the Village of Chimney Rock briefly choked up as he looked at the wrecked buildings where he lives and that house his family business, Bubba O’Leary’s General store.
“Welcome to Chimney Rock,” Mayor Peter O’Leary said, his face reddening a bit before he let out a sad laugh.
The building housing the “old-timey general store” where O’Leary sold tourists everything from penny candy and spicy jams to pricy souvenirs looked like its footings had been kicked out from underneath it and was partially collapsed.
The building next door, where O’Leary sold top-of-line hiking gear, was still standing, but it had been gutted by the floodwaters that inundated Chimney Rock on Sept. 27.
But at least, O’Leary said, he had something. Many of his neighbors lost everything when the Broad River, swollen by the torrential rains churned up by Helene, overflowed its banks and completely wiped out much of downtown Chimney Rock.
In all, O’Leary said, 15 businesses were destroyed and 26 more were damaged. On the south side of town, 15 homes were obliterated and 14 more were damaged. Five bridges, including a footbridge, were razed. Three miles of Main Street, which is also known as U.S. Highway 64/74, were completely torn apart.
And all this damage was done on a town with just 140 permanent residents, a town so small it doesn’t have a stop light.
“The challenge to getting back to normal life is the stuff we take for granted,” O’Leary said. “Power, water, sewer, and transportation roadways. All of these were damaged to a large degree.”
An NBC News video crew visited Chimney Rock the week after it flooded and spent two days following O’Leary and Chimney Rock Village Administrator Stephen Duncan as they struggled to restore basic services, navigated both physical and bureaucratic hurdles, and met with still shell-shocked storm survivors.
“It was just like a wall of water,” recalled survivor Barbara Meliski, who heads the Village Planning Board.
Clutching her jaw, Meliski said the water began rising after Chimney Rock had already been doused by an epic rainstorm.
“I’m telling you it was almost like you could grab the raindrops,” she said. “They were so thick.”
Teresa Cauthern, owner of the Chimney Rock Inn, shared with reporters footage of the raging river water ripping the deck off her property that she recorded just before she fled.
“I left right after this when I took this video,” she said. “I grabbed some things and my cat and we got out of there.”
As of Wednesday, there were 96 “verified storm-related fatalities” in North Carolina as a result of Helene, according to the state’s official website.
Thus far in Chimney Rock, there has been only one confirmed death in the village — an older woman who refused to leave her home on the south side of town, officials said.
O’Leary said he was away on vacation when the storm struck and when he finally made it back to Chimney Rock he found himself suddenly homeless. He lived just across the street from his store.
So O’Leary bunked a few miles out of town at Duncan’s compound, where they set up a “mobile command center” in Duncan’s RV.
When the NBC News crew visited, Duncan was visibly frustrated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response.
“FEMA has a website,” Duncan said. “Hell, that doesn’t do us any good. We can’t get online.”
Later, after a group call with an engineering firm, Duncan went further in his criticism of government bureaucracy.
“I’ll be straight with you,” he said. “The most perplexing thing that makes me angry is the federal emergency management is coming to help us, and to get their help you jump through so many hoops that are unnecessary.”
But Duncan was also unsparing in his criticism of private insurance companies.
“We got folks in this town who have already gone to their insurance companies and been told, ‘We can’t help you. You’ve got to go to FEMA,’” he said.
In response to that criticism, a FEMA spokesperson said last week that the agency has already paid out more than $100 million to more than 77,000 hurricane-hammered households in North Carolina, including money that survivors can use to pay for motels and temporary housing.
Last week, more than 2,000 families were staying in hotel rooms that FEMA had already booked and hundreds of FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams were on the ground across the area and at shelters helping survivors apply for assistance, the spokesperson said.
In addition to wrecking many businesses and private homes, the flooding in Chimney Rock tore up Main Street, creating a deep and jagged gash in the asphalt and completely demolishing the walkways along the riverfront.
Still, as he picked his way through all the wreckage of demolished businesses, O’Leary remained entranced by the setting of his little town, with Chimney Rock visible in this distance.
“This place ranks up there with any place in the world,” he said.
O’Leary said job No. 1 for him is to get Chimney Rock back up on its feet again so it can once again welcome the visitors who come by the thousands to revel in its beauty — especially on those sparking summer and fall days when western North Carolina is in its glory.
“When will we be back?” O’Leary said. “I think it will be back when the first meal is served to a tourist or the first T-shirt is sold to a tourist.”
Marshall Crook and Matthew Kwiecinski reported from Chimney Rock and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.
