North Carolina Air National Guard hauls over 100,000 pounds of supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in a C17 to Western North Carolina as a part of Tropical Storm Helene support. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Maj. Monica Ebert)
(NC Newsline) — While the immediate destruction from Hurricane Helene has subsided, the storm’s economic aftershocks have only just begun.
At stake is western North Carolina’s tourism industry, which brings in nearly $7.7 billion in visitor dollars each year, according to 2023 estimates — about a fifth of the state’s total.
For now, the massive infrastructure damage to the region through flooding, mudslides, and toppled trees has ground that spending to a halt. Workers are left without stable income while business owners wonder whether they can afford to reopen once it becomes safe to.
The existential question for local businesses and workers: How long until tourists can return?
Travel on hold
Each fall, western North Carolina receives millions of travelers eager to see the leaves change colors in the mountains. Many counties will be unable to welcome them back this year, meaning a major economic shortfall for a region already experiencing the shock of a natural disaster.
“That’s a huge impact on jobs, on tax revenues to the state, on livelihoods, on small businesses in the mountain areas,” Visit North Carolina executive director Wit Tuttell told NC Newsline Thursday. “It’s a tragic situation.”
Fall tourist traffic in North Carolina’s mountain west generates about $1.8 billion in revenue, Tuttell said. “That’s the economic spending loss we’re contemplating here.”
With roads, the electric grid, and other basic infrastructure shredded by Hurricane Helene, it’s not clear when tourism will be able to resume. For now, nearly all major attractions in affected counties have shuttered.
Biltmore Estate, the picturesque Vanderbilt mansion in Asheville, has said it expects to remain closed to visitors until Oct. 15 at the earliest, though the estate has not yet determined a reopening date.
Flooding and mudslides in western North Carolina caused extensive damage to roads and highways. This NCDOT photo taken on September 27, 2024 shows I-40 near Old Fort in McDowell County. (Photo: NCDOT)
Buncombe County, home to Asheville and hit hard by Helene, ranks third in tourism spending across the state, bringing in an estimated $2.96 billion in 2023.
In the North Carolina portion of the Great Smoky Mountains, Balsam Mountain, Cataloochee, and the Big Creek Area as well as surrounding campgrounds all remain closed due to the storm’s impact.
The scenic Blue Ridge Parkway is likewise shut down, with about 100 National Park Service employees working to assess the damage and clear hazards. As of Thursday, no date for reopening has been announced.
Visit NC and the North Carolina Travel Industry Association (NCTIA) have paused all travel marketing for the state in the wake of the storm. While some ads for unaffected regions could resume next week, it may be much longer before residents see ads inviting them back to the Appalachian west.
For workers, the storm continues
Also in jeopardy are the livelihoods of the many tourism and hospitality employees in western North Carolina. The region is home to more than 47,000 tourism workers, with nearly 20,000 in Buncombe County alone. Now, thousands are cut off from their primary source of income.
Jen Hampton, the co-chair of Asheville Food and Beverage United, encouraged workers to apply for disaster unemployment as well as FEMA disaster assistance funds.
“Workers in general have lost their livelihoods because all of the restaurants were either destroyed or are still without power and water,” Hampton said.
She said the union is working to secure grants from organizations across the state to provide additional help so workers can afford rent payments and grocery bills. They’re also in contact with other worker organizations across North Carolina to help find temporary jobs and housing for displaced workers.
In some cases, local business owners are doing what they can to help employees make ends meet. Hampton pointed to the example of her favorite coffee shop, which launched a GoFundMe to help pay workers while the store remains closed.
“Most of our businesses here are small business owners and there’s not much that they can do,” she said. “We’re just trying to support them the best way that we can.”
Already, nonprofits are providing relief to workers financially stranded by the storm. The Southern Smoke Foundation, a Houston nonprofit dedicated to aid for food and beverage workers, is offering funding for groceries, repairs, hospital bills, and lost wages in affected regions across the Southeast. The award process is anonymous, and the group has already provided roughly $1 million to workers impacted by natural disasters in 2024.
The North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association (NCRLA), a hospitality industry advocacy group, also offers a worker relief fund that provides economic aid to workers affected by disasters and personal crises. Launched in March 2020 as COVID-19 lockdowns took hold, the fund has provided $1.3 million to workers since its inception.
Lynn Minges, the group’s president and CEO, said the pandemic has provided a valuable roadmap for helping businesses navigate the extended closures to come.
“We’re reliving the nightmare that we endured during COVID, but we did learn a lot of lessons,” she said, pointing to a greater awareness of federal aid programs and informational resources created during the pandemic.
She said the region’s damaged infrastructure poses new obstacles to direct relief like the emergency fund, though. In many towns, banking and mail delivery remain impossible, and so alternative methods of aid may be necessary.
Hospitality amid disaster
In the aftermath of Helene, the hospitality industry of western North Carolina has emerged as a key component of disaster relief efforts.
Jen Hampton said her union has worked with other groups around the state to organize supply runs between Charlotte and Asheville as well as from the Raleigh-Durham area.
She credited restauranteurs in the city who have opened up their kitchens for free to cook for those in need of hot meals.
In the first days after the storm, Minges said the NCRLA worked with the relief nonprofit World Central Kitchen to organize aerial food drops to isolated areas. Now, she said, they have been able to move into still-functioning restaurants to feed western North Carolina residents.
Wilkes County tourism director Thomas Salley, right, has been delivering supplies to neighbors in need. (Photo courtesy of Vince Chelena.)
Where hotels are intact, many are hosting emergency responders and hurricane survivors free of charge. To house responders as they provide aid to the region, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort has set aside a full hotel tower.
Vince Chelena, the executive director of the North Carolina Travel Industry Association, said his focus has been ensuring colleagues are safe and supplied.
Chelena highlighted the work of Thomas Salley, the tourism director for Wilkes County, who has been packing his Chevrolet Suburban full of supplies and leading a convoy of cars, trucks, and off-road vehicles to restock neighbors in need.
Chelena’s group also held a collection drive to supply needed goods like cleaning supplies, water, and basic hygiene products from their hotels to western North Carolina residents.
Another way the hospitality industry is aiding disaster relief is by working with their existing linen services to provide clean clothes and bedding to responders and residents throughout western North Carolina. The NCTIA and the NCRLA have both worked with cleaners to haul soiled clothes and linens out of the western region and ship in clean replacements.
“Everybody’s pulling together up there and taking care of each other,” Chelena said.
Avoiding a ‘second tragedy’
Tuttell said that while safety is paramount, his next priority is avoiding a “second tragedy” once businesses are able to reopen. If tourists aren’t able to return to the region for a prolonged period, temporary closures could easily become permanent.
The economic fallout is not isolated to counties directly hit by the storm. The tax revenue generated by tourism in western North Carolina — more than $500 million in state and local taxes annually — funds social services, infrastructure upkeep, and other government expenditures throughout the state.
Chelena, the NCTIA executive director, said he expects aid to the region from the North Carolina General Assembly to bring much-needed relief to the tourism industry.
“We’ve got a General Assembly that understands the value of tourism in North Carolina and the economic impact and the number of jobs that it creates for citizens,” Chelena said. “We’re going to have some strong, sincere relief efforts coming our way to make sure that we get back on our feet in western North Carolina very quickly.”
Some businesses have already signaled they are ready to welcome back visitors, Tuttell said. Several counties in the far west of the state — Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Macon, and Swain — where businesses avoided much of the damage from Helene have told his office they hope to receive travelers soon.
“That’s always a challenge,” Tuttell said. “To have them get the business they need without interfering with the places that aren’t ready to open yet.”
While the great migration to view the changing of the leaves will be interrupted this year, Chelena said, the trees will have their visitors again before long.
“We know that we’re going to be able to rebuild fast,” he said. “We’ll be ready for leaf season next year.”
