Tent communities have popped up in devastated parts of western North Carolina as people work to figure out how to move massive amounts of donations into hard-to-reach mountainous areas.
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00:00Back to North Carolina, where relief efforts continue weeks after Helene's devastating impacts.
00:06Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby joins us right now tonight from Clyde, North Carolina, just west of Asheville.
00:11Aaron, you've been able to drop off the donations you brought with you on this trip.
00:15Have you been able to do that?
00:18Yeah, good evening, guys. I was able to get some of those out earlier this afternoon,
00:22but there's been almost a new problem developing where a lot of the communities that are up here in the mountains,
00:27it's been so slow to get the supplies and stuff up there due to all those road closures and washouts.
00:32They've been only being able to access those with ATV, four wheelers and helicopters.
00:36So they're only able to take so much at a time.
00:38And there's so many donations pouring in that a lot of the folks down here that it's easy to access,
00:42they're getting the proper supplies, which is good news.
00:45But some of the folks that are still trapped and stuck up here in the mountains,
00:48that's where they're running into a lot of problems and having a hard time keeping up those donations.
00:51So tomorrow, I'm going to make my way up into those mountains,
00:54try and coordinate with some of those groups and get some of these warm clothes to those folks up there in the mountain towns
00:59that are going to be dealing with this chilly weather, too, coming up as the winter starts to settle in.
01:04Aaron, what can you tell us about the living conditions there right now?
01:08Yeah, absolutely, guys. Some of the scenes are absolutely heartbreaking.
01:11You know, here in Asheville, they've been doing a pretty good job at cleaning stuff up.
01:16But some of those other communities, unfortunately, people are living out of tents right now.
01:20Their houses were either washed away or completely destroyed or very severely damaged.
01:24And unfortunately, there have been tent communities that have been essentially popping up,
01:29and that is the place that they're calling home for the time being.
01:32All right, Aaron. So we're looking at the video behind you.
01:35You have a couple signs up that say road closed.
01:38Tell us a little bit about the road conditions up there.
01:43Yeah, absolutely, guys. So this is actually the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway,
01:46which is still closed all through the entire state of North Carolina.
01:49It was able to reopen a little bit further north into Virginia.
01:53But here in North Carolina, it is absolutely astronomical how much deforestation occurred during this.
01:59We've been talking a lot about the devastating effects from the flooding,
02:02but this is something that almost got masked over even by me.
02:05It is absolutely surreal to see how many trees were blown down during Hurricane Helene in this area.
02:11And this has been the result of that as they work to clean those up.
02:14There's been multiple landslides that I've come across that have taken out sections of the roadway,
02:18and it's going to be quite some time, I think, before they're able to reopen this roadway.
02:22And this is, again, what's been causing so many of those problems, though.
02:25These trees and these washouts are just really hampering those rescue efforts,
02:29especially up into the mountain communities.
02:31So we're going to have more on that tomorrow.
02:33I'm going to surface some drone video and give that perspective, you know, of what it's like,
02:38because it's supposed to be a fall foliage right now.
02:40This is supposed to be colorful and cheerful, and it's anything but right now.
02:44That's real tough stuff here, Aaron.
02:46I know a lot of people are living in tents.
02:48And, you know, I can't help but ask, just because we know that there are bears near you,
02:53you've mentioned that there's a bear or two within sight of you right now.
02:57Again, their living quarters have also been kind of upended in some form,
03:02probably less so than the human aspect of things.
03:05But have you seen a lot of wildlife out and about?
03:08I know you've been looking off to the side there.
03:10You're good at masking this, but we know that you have a bear near you right now.
03:15Yeah, absolutely.
03:16I mean, this has a whole snowball effect.
03:18You know, all these trees are down.
03:19They knock down their homes.
03:20A lot of the shrubs have been completely dismantled,
03:23and a lot of the wildlife that they typically feast on are now shoved elsewhere.
03:28So they're forced to relocate and make their way up through these mountains
03:31that you might not typically see them.
03:33And it's exactly what happened here.
03:34I was getting ready to set up my live shot, and I looked over,
03:36and a mama bear and two cubs are still over here kind of munching on the grass
03:39that's available and working their way up the mountain.
03:41And a lot of those communities also have to be careful
03:43because some of that food that's being brought up into these communities,
03:46if they aren't properly stored, we're going to run into the issue
03:49where wildlife is going to want to start getting into those.
03:51So that's kind of one of those untalked about dangers
03:54that people can't necessarily forget about.
03:56A lot of those little things add up after a while
03:59in the grand scheme of things in the big picture.
04:01So we've got to keep an eye on that as well.
04:03All right.
04:04Aaron, thank you so much.
04:05Aaron Rigsby reporting live from Clyde, North Carolina.
04:08Thanks for your update, and we'll check in with you here coming up.