Five months after Hurricane Helene severed a critical Appalachian freight corridor, a 12-mile stretch of Interstate 40 through North Carolina’s Pigeon River Gorge reopened Saturday.

A stretch of Interstate 40 through the western North Carolina mountains is reopening to traffic this weekend, months after Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding collapsed portions of the road.

After a five-month closure due to Hurricane Helene, a 12-mile stretch of I-40 near the Tennessee border will reopen on Saturday.

It will cost $60 billion for North Carolina to recover from Hurricane Helene, according to the latest state estimate. “The challenges in relation to this are so enormous,” Thomas Chandler, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University,

Another $500 million would be spent toward Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in western North Carolina in legislation the state House unanimously approved Tuesday. The measure, if enacted, would add to the funds the Republican-controlled General Assembly already approved in late 2024 to spend on disaster recovery activities

NORTH CAROLINA, USA — As Western North Carolina marks five months since Hurricane Helene, nonprofits on the ground helping since Day 1 say there's still lots of work left to do.

Fox News correspondent Madison Scarpino reports on an initiative in North Carolina to build small homes for displaced Hurricane Helene victims.

Jill Holtz went to western North Carolina with the Army National Guard to help survivors of Hurricane Helene. Five months later, she’s still there, but as a volunteer helping reunite residents with items they thought were gone forever.