Helene's damage to North Carolina's Green River affects businesses that depend on it

By Rolando Arrieta

Published October 17, 2024 at 3:43 PM EDT

Woody Callaway overlooks the Fish Top access to North Carolina’s Green River, a spot famous for kayaking, rafting and tubing that is now littered with debris and washed-up logs.

SALUDA, N.C. - Most recreational rivers in western North Carolina were decimated by Hurricane Helene's floods and are littered with debris.

The Green River, a popular attraction for many outdoor adventure enthusiasts, is one of them.

"I'm looking at the river, which was once 50 feet maximum wide," said Woody Callaway.

"It's at least six, seven hundred feet wide."

Callaway lives in a small community in the Green River valley.

He co-owns a kayak company headquartered nearby.

It takes an ATV to get down a barely drivable switchback road to his home in a spot on the cove he remembers as beautiful, remote and green.

"I felt like I'd built a house at the bottom of the ski lift at Tahoe," he said.

After the floods, the view changed to a brownish, muddy, scoured river with dried bedrock and piles of debris. Fallen trees jammed together rise dozens of feet high.

The Green River is a major outdoor adventure and recreation destination, from expert-level kayaking to a leisurely float down an inner tube.

"Every whitewater kayaking guidebook is obsolete. All the rapids are different. They're going to have different names, different lines," said John Grace, who also lives on the cove and organizes the annual Green River Race, a whitewater event for expert kayakers.

Adriene Levknecht learned to kayak here. She has competed in the Green River race for nearly two decades, winning the last thirteen in a row.

The morning after the rains stopped, she hopped on a redeye from Seattle to volunteer in the rebuilding efforts on the cove.

While the river's current state saddens her, she welcomes the change.

"As kayakers, we're going to have to remember what she was like before she changed. And then love her just as much now, even though she's different," Levknecht said.

When Green River Cove resident Susan Figetakis heard a big boom nearby and saw water crawling up the stairs, she crawled out the back window and hiked up the mountain ridge until she was rescued by a friend.

A couple of miles down the barely passable Green River Cove Road, this small community is littered with upturned vehicles, crumbled roofs and what's left of homes along the river banks.

A summer camp, a kayak school and a tubing outpost are all washed away.

"I don't know how that business over there, Wilderness Cove tubing recovers,' Grace said.

"They lost all of their stuff. A big portion of their land is gone."

Up the valley in Saluda, small business owners are still reeling from Hurricane Helene's aftermath.

The Green River Cove was once a place where thousands learned how to kayak. The kayak school outpost was destroyed, but some kayaks were found and saved.

The Green River is the lifeline for dozens of mom-and-pop shops around town.

Emily Lamar is vice president of marketing for the local business association.

She says they haven't even started forecasting their potential loss from outdoor adventure tourism.

"But we are 100% terrified of the effect it's going to have," Lamar said.

A survey conducted last year estimates that outdoor recreation in western North Carolina has an annual economic impact of nearly $5 billion dollars.

In addition to the Green, the Helene floods caused other western North Carolina rivers to overflow its banks, ravaging nearly everything in its path.

Businesses along the French Broad, the Nolichucky and the Pigeon are closed indefinitely, and due to damaged roads, getting to them is difficult.

Tubing is a favorite summertime activity on the Green River. All of them along the cove are destroyed or closed indefinitely.

Outdoor outfitters and rafting shops that run commercial trips on these rivers are bracing for the economic impact if normal operations cannot resume by the Summer.

And so is Lamar.

She was born and raised in Saluda and owns a taco stand that caters to Green River patrons.

"It's a thing. You go on the river. You come back. You get some tacos. You get some margaritas. And as of right now, we don't know what that looks like. So that's a very scary feeling," she said.

Tim Bell and his wife share that scary feeling. They own an inflatable kayak outfitter in Saluda.

Helene hit right before the river water got cold and the recreational paddling season ended.

"If the worst case scenario happens, which means the Green River does not get cleaned up in time for us to operate significantly next Summer. We are entrepreneurs at heart, and so I have no doubt that we will adapt and figure out the next tomorrow," Bell said.

All the rivers that are part of western North Carolina's outdoor recreation activity will require a collective reset as those who depend on them will also try to figure out their next tomorrow.