The Asheville region of western North Carolina is slowly making a comeback from the devastating damage caused by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27, 2024.
After months of cleanup and rebuilding, campground owners in the area are beginning to reopen at least portions of their parks, welcoming campers back to one of the most popular outdoor regions in the U.S.
“It’s been a struggle,” said Dee Witting, executive director of the Carolina Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (CARVC). “There was very little money available to the campgrounds to help them rebuild. A lot of the impacted campgrounds are on the tops of sides of mountains, so they didn’t see a need for additional flood insurance. They have basically had to use their own funds to get their parks up and going.”
She said most campgrounds in the area are smaller, mom-and-pop family operations with limited resources.
Witting said CARVC had 38 member parks in that area of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and all 38 were damaged to some extent. She said while recent re-openings are heartening, she doesn’t expect all of the campgrounds to return to operation.
While the Asheville region’s return to welcoming campers is a boon to the area, the accomplishment can’t be fully appreciated without a clear understanding of what happened that day.
Watching from the Bluff
Buck Hill Campground Owner Christopher Caudle had expected a lot of rain as Hurricane Helene plowed its way across Georgia and into western North Carolina, aiming directly at his park along the North Toe River. Forecasts called for the storm to quickly downgrade to tropical storm status.
Caudle and brother/business partner, Carl, had experienced heavy rain events before and thought they would be able to weather what came from Helene. Caudle said he’d been actively discouraging campers from coming to his 72-site, 11-cabin park that weekend, but nearly 50 rigs still arrived prior to the storm.
As Helene rolled in that afternoon, it became apparent that this was far different from previous post-hurricane storms with its high winds and torrential rains. What arrived was a once-in-500-year tropical storm event that left 252 people dead in its wake – with 108 deaths in North Carolina alone – and resulted in $79 billion in damages.
The Buck Hill Campground was completely inundated all along its 1,800-foot riverfront property.
“Every one of the 49 RVs on the property was either washed away or completely destroyed,” Caudle said. “A total of 26 RVs were completely washed off of the property.
“I think it’s fair to say that we were hit harder than anyone in Avery or Mitchell Counties because of our proximity to the river,” he added.
Recovering from recent surgery, all Caudle could do was watch from his hilltop front porch across the river as RV after RV was swept away, along with several of the park’s cabins and outbuildings.
Two Buck Hill campers – Charlene and Russell Wilbur – were killed after their rig was swept away by the rapidly rising river. Charlene’s body wasn’t recovered until October, and Wilbur wasn’t found until March 2025.
A church group that had ignored Caudle’s warning to stay away that weekend became an ad hoc rescue crew, using ropes and a U-Haul trailer to save other campers.
“We were stuck across the river and couldn’t help them,” he explained. “All we could do was watch it happen. We easily could have lost 40 campers if they (the church group) hadn’t been there and done what they did.”
The Caudle brothers were left with a property nearly scraped clean of every structure and amenity, and a destroyed underground infrastructure.
Yet the Caudles didn’t hesitate in deciding to rebuild. They’ve hired a company to help redesign the park’s layout and have been able to recover and rebuild three cabins.
“We’ve been working on the place for a solid year now,” he said. “Water got into everything. Even the cabins were swept off their foundations.”
Caudle said the park was a “100% loss.” Most of the area roads — including the famous Blue Ridge Parkway — as well as many bridges, were devastated, and many are still out of operation. Witting said the Blue Ridge Parkway is still limited to one lane in some areas, making it difficult if not impossible to maneuver an RV.
“We are obviously going to need a massive loan to rebuild our campground,” Caudle said. He said he expects utilities and road work to begin this fall, with bath houses, playgrounds, pickleball courts and other facilities coming back in the spring of 2026. Caudle said it will likely be summer 2026 before the campground is again accepting guests.
“It’s been 13 months with no income and no guests,” Caudle said. “That is a lonely place to be when you’re a campground owner.”
Asheville East KOA Holiday Comes Back
Kampgrounds of America Inc.’s corporately owned location in Swannanoa, N.C., was also swept clean by floodwaters.
The park’s administrative building and bathhouse were severely damaged, and silt and erosion still clog the campground’s two popular ponds.
Nevertheless, the Asheville East KOA Holiday was able to reopen the park’s south section in early October.
“When the storm struck, we had campers in tents and in three camping cabins up on a hill who were cut off by the river, which runs through the middle of the campground,” said Mark Chipperfield, regional vice president for KOA’s OAK properties, its company-owned network. He said the river broke through a dike before rushing through the campground. Some campers at the park were able to get out with their rigs, but many didn’t have time. The local Citizen Times newspaper reported that two people at the park died during the Swannanoa River flooding caused by Hurricane Helene.
“It took me about three days to get to the property,” Chipperfield said. “You just can’t prepare yourself for when you see an 18-wheeler up in the trees. It was that kind of devastation.”
Chipperfield said the staff went immediately to work after the storm, attempting to clear roads and downed trees. He was able to contract with a crew to help, and most of the debris was hauled to the road for pickup later.
The KOA was fortunate that some patio sites in the south section of the park didn’t see much damage.
“We had our ribbon cutting on Oct. 4,” he noted. “It was just so great to see guests there and see how happy they were to see us reopening.”
The Asheville East KOA Holiday now has 64 open RV sites, along with 32 tent sites and four cabins. Chipperfield said he’s still working through the proper mix of sites, as well as getting the proper permits in order to open the north end of the campground. The river dike has also been replaced and reinforced.
Wind on the Mountain
For Marla Snead, owner of the Linville Falls Campground & RV Park in Linville Falls, N.C., the problem caused by Hurricane Helene was wind, not water.
“We lost over 100 mature trees,” she said. “Many of those caused damage to six of our buildings, and we had to totally rebuild the pavilion because it was flattened by a huge oak.”
Despite the damage, Snead was able to reopen the park in April 2025. She said the biggest issue she faced all summer was getting the word out that her park was open for business.
“The year had been slower than we had hoped and certainly slower than normal,” she said. “But this October, we’re finally getting the word out that you can come here. The leaves are beautiful and we’re having a really good October.”
Snead said most area attractions have also been reopened, and popular hiking trails have also been cleared. The biggest issue remains the condition of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which remains closed between her campground and Mount Mitchell.
“Getting that road reopened would be a big help, but that’s up to the National Park Service,” she said. “They had about 20 landslides that they have to clear and fix.”
Snead said her small campground on the side of a mountain didn’t have enough insurance to cover all damages, but she was able to bank enough funds during the boom years after the pandemic to handle most initial costs herself.
“We were able to write a check for the tree people and the other contractors,” she said. “We did not have to go into debt to get reopened, and that was a blessing.”
She also noted that grants from the OHI Foundation, the Wally Byram Airstream Club and the Boone Chamber of Commerce helped to fill the gaps.
Snead said about five campgrounds in her immediate area were severely damaged, and only one other has managed to reopen. The other three that are still closed are NPS parks. She said she suspects some area park owners are still evaluating when and if they can bring their campgrounds back to life.
“We had campers here the day it happened because it wasn’t supposed to be that bad,” Snead said. “We were just expecting a very rainy weekend. We still had about six RVs here, and people in five of our 12 cabins. All weathered the storm together.”
Emberglow Becomes a Lifeline
At first, Tim Murphy thought the remnants of Hurricane Helene would just be an annoyance for his Emberglow Outdoor Resort in Mill Spring, N.C. But the high winds that hit the park dropped more than 150 trees, and water rushing down a usually dry riverbed that all of a sudden wasn’t dry damaged the large resort pool and washed the gravel from nearly every road.
“We had trees fall right next to buildings, but not onto them directly,” Murphy said. “And you could have rafted down that formerly dry riverbed.”
While the pool had to be completely cleaned and reconditioned, the campground was only closed for 12 days after the storm.
“We aren’t right on a river or a lake, so we considered ourselves pretty lucky,” he explained.
Murphy said he was quickly able to have generators supply power and revive both water and sewer systems. That allowed both guests and area residents without power to use the park for showers.
Because the damage at Emberglow wasn’t as severe as other areas, the campground soon became a collection point for truckloads of relief supplies.
“We were able to get those supplies and kind of break down those trucks and then feed the smaller supplies of resources to other distribution points that couldn’t accept large volumes like we could,” he said. “We just decided that helping was a role we could play.”
Getting the Word Out
As campgrounds in the Asheville region begin to open, the challenge now is to get the word out that the area is back in business.
“We are having a pretty good year because we decided to really double down on our marketing efforts,” Murphy said. “We know that rebounding from this is not going to come easy. We are still hearing from people who think they need to stay away from the mountains and ‘let them heal.’ They think it’s not OK to come back here. We’re busy reminding people that we are good to go.”
Snead agreed.
“The main obstacle we’ve had this year is convincing people that it’s OK to come,” she said. “The roads are mostly open. They can get here. The trails and the attractions are open. There’s never been a better time to come and enjoy these great fall leaves.”
This story was written by Mike Gast.
