In one rural NC county, rebuilding two highways after Helene will cost more than $1 billion
Among the most complex and expensive road rebuilding projects in Western North Carolina after Helene involve two rural highways in Yancey County, north of Asheville.
That’s where more than two feet of rain fell in a matter of hours and where the flooding Cane and North Toe rivers washed out miles of U.S. 19W and N.C. 197 in late September. Six months later, the highways have reopened, but with temporary roadbeds and pavement in many places.
Next week, the N.C. Department of Transportation will share its plans for rebuilding the highways at a public meeting in Burnsville. NCDOT expects to spend more than $1 billion and take until sometime in 2027 to finish the job.
Helene is by far the most expensive natural disaster NCDOT has ever faced. The department identified about 9,370 sites damaged by the storm, and more than 200 roads remain closed or partially closed, down from a peak of 1,454.
The department estimates that rebuilding roads and bridges destroyed by the storm will cost $5 billion. The Office of State Budget and Management puts that figure at $6 billion, factoring in inflation and other cost increases in coming months and years.
A big chunk of that will go to rebuild the two highways in Yancey County.
Long stretches of U.S. 19W and N.C. 197 snake alongside the Cane and North Toe rivers. In many places, floodwaters carried away not only the pavement but also the earth beneath it, leaving only uneven bare rock and nothing resembling a road.
NCDOT and its contractors spent months re-establishing those roadbeds, with thousands of dump truck loads of stone and earth.
“Right now, we have crews just building the road back from nothing,” Chris Deyton, the NCDOT deputy engineer for the region that includes Yancey County, said in November.
Now NCDOT will embark on an effort to recreate the roads as they were before the storm, though with modern design standards. The new roads will also be built to better withstand future floods, with improved drainage and walls and berms made of stone and concrete.
NCDOT plans to put the roads back where they were, though some realignment may be necessary at bridge crossings and intersections. In the steep, narrow valleys, the department doesn’t have much choice but to rebuild next to the river.
The terrain will slow reconstruction, Deyton said.
“We’ll be working along riverbanks,” he said. “So doing that properly, taking the environment into consideration as we build these roads back, increases the difficulty compared to flatland construction.”
The rivers also swept away or severely damaged two dozen bridges that in many cases must be rebuilt. Nearly 30 secondary roads will also need to be rebuilt near where they intersect U.S. 19W and N.C. 197.
Too much work for one company to handle
Last fall, NCDOT estimated that rebuilding 14 miles of U.S. 19W alone would cost somewhere around $1 billion. The expected cost for that road is now much less, about $520 million.
But combined with N.C. 197 and the intersecting secondary roads, NCDOT now estimates it will spend about $1.17 billion to repair and rebuild 75 miles of roadway and 28 bridges.
NCDOT determined that one company couldn’t handle that much work. So the department divided it into four projects and awarded separate contracts to four teams of designers and construction companies.
Construction on all four projects is scheduled to begin this summer and run through 2027.
The four projects cover:
▪ Ten miles of U.S. 19W from where it joins the Cane River north to Piney Hill Road. Includes two miles of secondary roads and 10 bridges. Estimated cost: $200 million.
▪ Six miles of U.S. 19W from Piney Hill Road north to where it crosses the Cane River one last time and heads up the mountain toward Tennessee. Includes eight miles of secondary roads and seven bridges. Estimated cost: $320 million.
▪ Eleven miles of N.C. 197 South from Burnsville toward Pensacola. Includes 20 miles of secondary roads and 11 bridges. Estimated cost: $300 million.
▪ Five and a half miles of N.C. 197 North along the North Toe River near Green Mountain. Includes 12.5 miles of secondary roads, including some in neighboring Mitchell County. Estimated cost: $350 million
NCDOT seeking public feedback
NCDOT is seeking public feedback on the projects through April 14 through the project website, ncdot.publicinput.com/k11275; via phone at 984-205-6615, project code 11256; email helenerepairs-yanceymitchell@publicinput.com, or mail to Sunil Singh, Environmental Analysis Unit, 1598 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-1598.
NCDOT will answer questions and accept comments from 4 to 7 p.m. on Monday, March 31, at the Burnsville Town Center, 6 South Main St.
This story was originally published March 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "In one rural NC county, rebuilding two highways after Helene will cost more than $1 billion."
