Blue Ridge Parkway CLOSED

[Skid]

The National Parks Service says the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed indefinitely.  I guess it suffered lots of damage from this storm. Sad to hear this during the peak of the Fall Season. 

[N3FOL]

With all the relief efforts concentrated along the hardest hit areas, I have a feeling it will be a long time until they open up the parkway.  Hence like you said, indefinitely.  Helene was truly a monster storm.  

[BlueSky]

My daughter and her family and my ex-wife live a few miles south of Hendersonville, about 45 minutes from Asheville.  They lost power which also cut off the water since both homes had their own wells.  Otherwise they did okay with no damage.  I'm recovering from Covid for the second time and could not go help out but my son in CA flew over and brought two generators and has been helping them.  My son had to take some detours but was able to get to them.  

I read that it will be Spring next year before I26 north of Asheville will be opened and fall of next year before I40 will be open. 

[ragtop69gs]

We were on the BRP on Wednesday before the hurricane reached the area, the rain from another storm rolled in before noon, it was torrential rains that made it difficult to see let alone ride in to escape down the mountain! It brought 6+ inches of rain before the hurricane got here.  I had 31" of rain at home between Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon! 

[Riderduke]

I rode about 75-80 miles on Skyline Drive and it was beautiful.  The rangers we were talking to said that BRP was closed even in the area that wasn't effected by Helene..  It was just easier to shut it all down for Evaluation and Repairs, they said.

[BlueSky]

Sunday my daughter and family and my ex-wife got power back.  So their lives are mostly back to normal.  They even got cell phone service and the internet.  Actually my ex was on a Verizon plan and had cell phone service most of the time.  They were without power and water for eleven days.  The well pumps were 220 volts and the generators only supplied 120 and it would have taken an electrician to hook it up anyway.  So they were very fortunate compared to a lot of folks in that area.  

[DonnyRudeDude]

Late reply here....my wife and I travelled down that way through a short section of Skyline Drive in early October. The Blue Ridge Parkway was closed at that time due to the hurricane damage. The section we travelled was beautiful that time of the year. We came across Hwy 250 from the 219. Hwy 250 from Huttonsville to Staunton WV looks fairly straight on a map...Wrong. It was a beautiful twisty road with breath taking scenery. It was obvious to me afterwords that going over the mountains is going to be a little twisty and up and down. It was a challenging ride to say the least, all loaded up with my wife on the back. I'll bring the Venture next time, I think it would handle the twisties better.  We made it to the Howard Johsons just after dark, which wasn't wise travelling in the dark as we noticed lots of deer appearing at dusk. Made it safely and there must have been 25 motorcyclist's staying at HoJo's. Most of those bikes were in the class of adventure touring, which seems to be a popular way to ride, especially through the mountains. It was a great ride and hope to do it again next year and this time travel south down the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 

Mark