Snow falls on North Carolina’s ‘forgotten’ mountain towns after Hurricane Helene
Winterlike weather has come early and will leave western North Carolina residents shivering, including thousands still without power nearly three weeks after Hurricane Helene. Tuesday night, light snow fell above 3,000 feet in elevation at Maggie Valley, Waynesville, and at the Beech Mountain, Cataloochee, and Appalachian Mountain ski areas.
Snow also likely fell at the top of Mount Mitchell Tuesday night. The mountain is still without power, and its webcam and weather station have been offline since Helene hit on Sept. 27.
Nearly three weeks ago, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and went on to cause record flooding in the southern Appalachians. At least 232 people were killed by the storm. The storm knocked out power to 4.8 million customers. Although most power has been restored, for the last week, the number of homes and businesses still in the dark has remained steady at around 15,000 in three mountain counties in North Carolina, according to PowerOutage.US.
Most of those still without power are in Mitchell County and Yancey County, home to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River, nestled halfway between Asheville and Boone. Each county still has one-third of customers in the dark.
AccuWeather Regional Expert John Feerick says the first truly cold air of the season will continue to plunge southward through the Appalachians this week. Frost and freeze alerts are in effect for most of the state’s western counties.
Asheville’s flooding made most of the headlines, but the mountain town of Boone, in Wautagua County, was left almost completely without power and “almost unrecognizable” after Hurricane Milton, one resident told WXII last weekend. Citizens are worried that they will be forgotten.
Watauga Online said Monday that a curfew was still in effect for Boone and Blowing Rock overnight, and parts of the county “have a great deal of road work, power restoration, and debris removal ongoing.”
Snow after a hurricane is unusual but not rare. Some hurricanes, such as Hurricane Sandy, have even caused snow in the southern Appalachians.
