NCDOT builds temporary highway restoring Chimney Rock access

CHIMNEY ROCK, N.C. — There has been major progress to restore access to Chimney Rock nearly a year after Helene decimated the roads.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has rebuilt 2.5 miles of Highway 64/74.

The temporary road allows access to Chimney Rock for people who live and work in town.

Steve Gale showed Channel 9’s Dave Faherty how high the water got inside his souvenir store in Chimney Rock.

He and workers were moving items back in, and they hope to reopen in a few weeks for the fall leaf season.

The temporary Highway 64/74 allows Gale to get back and forth to his home near Bat Cave.

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“We were driving in the riverbed, and it was just gravel, sand and dirt and water,” he said. “Then the DOT came in and did the temporary road, which is out of sight, because they did it so quick.”

The NCDOT rebuilt the temporary road in seven months spending $25 million.

The state is using the bottom of old railway cars as single-lane bridges across the Broad River.

Nathan Moneyham, NCDOT Division Contraction engineer, will never forget seeing the damage for the first time.

“It was very overwhelming seeing the kind of challenge and the devastation that was here,” Moneyham said. “I think one of the things is we knew we could do it. I think the question is, ‘How long it would take?’”

With the temporary road in place, plans call for a permanent road to be built over the next three years between Chimney Rock and Bat Cave.

People in Bat Cave, including Lynn Staton, who lost much of her business, and Curtis McCart, whose home was badly damaged, are thankful for the work done by the state.

“Hope is coming back because in the beginning, we were like, ‘What the heck are we going to do,’ because it looked like someone had dropped a bomb on us,” Staton said.

“It’s been nonstop, and the roads are nice,” McCart said. “Gotten a lot of quality work done in a short amount of time.”

NCDOT officials said it will cost $250 million to permanently rebuild the roadway.

VIDEO: Century-old treasures emerge amid post-Helene Lake Lure restoration efforts