Next, we headed towards the mountains and Lake Lure. Debris fills the waterways where colorful kayaks break up the sea of brown debris. Docks were floating in the middle of the lake with chairs and tables still sitting on top. It was as if the structure wasn’t ripped from a home.
Lake Lure Beach washed away and the historic Lake Lure Flowering Bridge, once a blooming botanical garden and overlook, is now destroyed.
Community members could be seen walking over the debris of the neighboring bridge.
Not far from there at Chimney Rock, another bridge was ripped in half by the strong floodwaters. The once postcard-perfect mountain town still held on to some of its beauty in the midst of the destruction, but the wineries and breweries that looked over the water are now washed away.
The waters in Biltmore Village are receding, leaving weeks, months, and even years of cleanup.
The conditions in Morganton were shocking -- the town was still underwater on Saturday.
Friday morning, emergency officials told Channel 9 that resources were stretched extremely thin due to the number of calls they were responding to.
Channel 9’s Hannah Goetz spoke to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper Saturday evening. Cooper said crews have carried out over 200 water rescues already, many of them in the western part of the state.
“Getting those supplies into the area is critical it is extremely challenging,” Cooper said. “People in the mountains know that topography is difficult anyway, but with so many landslides, so many roads have been taken out. With so much still underwater and some rivers still rising, the danger is not over. There is a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Efforts are ongoing to get supplies by air to people who are trapped, according to Cooper.
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Local News
