Most of Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia will reopen ‘within the next week’

The National Park Service says most of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia will reopen “within the next week” but that the North Carolina section will remain closed because it was more heavily damaged by Hurricane Helene. In some places, the park service says the damage is “catastrophic.

For now, the entire lenth of the 469-mile scenic highway remains closed.

The park service says it is “finishing up damage assessments and the clearing of debris” and aims for a “phased reopening of most of the parkway in Virginia within the next week.”

In North Carolina, there is no target date for reopening the parkway and there won’t be one until after park officials have completed an assessment of the storm damage. “Crews have so far encountered tens of thousands of trees across the roadway and nearly three dozen rock and mud slides,” the park service said. “The slides have occurred above and below the road and have also severely damaged or swept away the roadbed in numerous places.”

The National Park Service reminds the public that the closure of the Blue Ridge Parkway and associated park trails applies to all vehicles and uses — motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Hazards both seen and unseen endanger unauthorized users, and some threats may not be obvious, such as weakened road structures or hanging limbs, which are subject to falling in changing weather conditions, the park service said. One crew in North Carolina was forced to stop work over the weekend to evacuate an unauthorized user who was injured while in the park.

Until the parkway has been reopened, entering closed sections is not only dangerous to visitors and recovery crews, the park service said, but also illegal and subject to enforcement under Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

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