Blue Ridge Parkway has catastrophic damage from Helene; entire length closed indefinitely

The entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed as National Park Service crews continue to assess the damage from Hurricane Helene.

The National Park Service has deployed its Eastern incident management team in North Carolina and Virginia.

The team brings specialized skills and resources to support the parkway with employee emergency needs, emergency stabilization of affected park resources and damage assessments.

Blue Ridge Parkway staff are working with 250 National Park Service employees from 32 states and the District of Columbia on the recovery efforts.

National Park Service assessment teams are still completing their initial inspections of the parkway and acquiring the data they will need to analyze the full impact of Hurricane Helene.

Based on what the teams have seen so far, significant, and in some cases catastrophic, damage has occurred along the parkway, particularly from milepost 280 to milepost 469.

In the coming weeks, the assessment teams will utilize the data from their inspections to determine the full extent of the damage including the timeline and cost estimates for repairs.

A projected reopening date of any section of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina has not yet been established; assessment crews are finishing their work in Virginia.