The United States’ most-visited scenic road, the Blue Ridge Parkway, has been closed by the National Park Service with no estimated date of reopening. The closure coincides with the arrival of Fall colors to Appalachia and the Southeast, which are typically the Parkway’s busiest season. But this year, the full length of the Parkway will be shut down as the Park Service scrambles to aid in recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene.
The category 4 storm swept through the region last week, carving a path of destruction felt as far north as Illinois and Indiana. It was the deadliest hurricane since 2005’s Katrina, with over 200 confirmed dead and hundreds more missing according to NBC. The majority of those hail from states rarely exposed to weather of this ferocity, namely Tennessee and North Carolina—the latter being one of the endpoints of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Even before the storm’s conclusion on Saturday, Sept. 29, the National Park Service announced that the Parkway would remain closed until further notice for repairs and rescue efforts. The 469-mile route, the longest linear park in the country, suffered innumerable road washouts that are complicating recovery efforts across the region. While only segments of the road closed initially, an updated closure notice on Thursday, Oct. 3 declared the Parkway’s full length off-limits as 250 Park Service personnel from 32 states and the District of Columbia coordinate to reverse Helene’s “catastrophic” damage.
Though assessors near completion on the Virginia portions of the route, the repair timeline may mean the park remains closed not just through the fall peak, but potentially for seasons to come as colder, rainier months complicate repairs from flooding and mudslides. It will come as a disappointment to many travelers, as the Blue Ridge Parkway is the single most-visited site of the entire National Park system; yet to many Appalachians and Southerners, disappointment and inconvenience would be infinitely preferable to the loss of life and home that so many thousands now face.
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