Days after Helene unleashed unprecedented destruction in western North Carolina, many people remain cut off from society due to washed-out and tree-covered roads.
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00:00In North Carolina, Helene's destruction damaged roads and bridges with flooding and landslides.
00:06Man, this was huge, huge impact here.
00:09And here with the latest is Jamie Kreitzer, spokesperson with the North Carolina Department
00:12of Transportation.
00:14Jamie, this has been a tremendously hard hit to infrastructure and the road network here
00:20that navigates through the high ground of western North Carolina, extremely hard hit.
00:23So what are your crews encountering?
00:26And are there cut and shove crews clearing out trees, roads washed out?
00:30Is there any hope that I-40 is going to open up in the foreseeable future?
00:35Yeah, our crews, and thank you for giving us the time, our crews have seen and witnessed
00:43over the past several days devastation unlike they, I know, have seen in their lifetimes
00:51and many of the longtime residents living in western North Carolina have ever seen either.
00:57You've got entire communities that are covered in water from the floods from Helene.
01:03You've got roads that were covered in mudslides, roads that were absolutely destroyed, some
01:10you can't even really see anymore.
01:13So the devastation is really widespread and our crews are, have been working hard around
01:20the clock since we were able to, after Helene passed through our state, to get roads reopened
01:32throughout the region so that emergency responders can get through and get to people in need.
01:40We have a lot of people who need food, who need water, who need emergency supplies, and
01:46we are working very hard to get those roads reopened so that those emergency supplies
01:53can be, can be delivered.
01:56And how many citizens are still isolated because of being cut off through the interruptions
02:02to the road network?
02:04Are emergency responders able to access some of these areas?
02:07Yeah, there are many areas that are still inaccessible.
02:13There have been airlifts dropping food, water, and emergency supplies to places that, you
02:20know, have been identified.
02:23We have also set up a number of emergency shelters across the region, but to put a number
02:30on it is very difficult to do at this point.
02:33There are, just as we have hundreds, literally hundreds of roads that are still destroyed
02:43by this.
02:44And so we are working, you know, hard to clear roads where trees may have fallen down and
02:51we can get the cut and shove operations working, you know, use our chainsaws to remove trees
02:58from those roads and disentangle the power lines as soon as the utilities folks are working
03:05with us on that.
03:07But then a lot of it is looking at roads that have been absolutely destroyed and this will
03:14be a months and months long response and recovery operation.
03:19And JP, we understand that there are probably some of your crews who have had damage to
03:24their own properties and they're out there working to help others try to get back on
03:28the grid.
03:29Jamie Kreitzer, Assistant Director of Communications with the North Carolina Department of Transportation,
03:32thanks again so much for joining us.