Asheville businesses struggle to rebuild after Hurricane Helene
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- When Devin DeHoll, the co-owner and founder of Asheville Adventure Company, surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene, he realized the business he had built for over six years would never be the same again.
The company operated several rock-climbing gyms and ran rafting and e-bike tours around the Asheville area. But four of their five locations in the hard-hit River Arts District were destroyed by the storm.
The storm "very nearly destroyed our entire company," DeHoll said. The disaster prompted him to move across the country and dramatically downsize the company as he explores other business opportunities.
DeHoll is one of many entrepreneurs and small business owners whose livelihoods have been disrupted by the storm, which devastated western North Carolina in September, destroying crucial infrastructure and causing catastrophic flooding. Forty-three people were killed in Buncombe County and the area was left without drinkable water until mid-November.
Although life is slowly returning to normal in Asheville, the effects of the storm are long-lasting - and tourism, which historically has formed a crucial part of the city's economy, remains a fraction of pre-storm levels.
Local businesses in Asheville and Buncombe County are expected to see a loss of $585 million in visitor spending during the first quarter of 2025, according to Vic Isley, the president and CEO of Explore Asheville.
In 2023, visitors spent "nearly $3 billion" at businesses in Asheville and Buncombe County, accounting for about 20% of the county GDP, Isley told CNN Sunday. Almost a third of that spending came during the crucial winter months between October and December, when tourists typically flock to observe the vibrant fall foliage and visit iconic Asheville attractions like Biltmore Village.
"There would be no good time for a storm like a Helene, but this could be the worst possible time," she said.
Several beloved Asheville enterprises have been forced to permanently close in the aftermath of the storm, according to Isley, including Pleb Urban Winery and Vivian, a restaurant in the arts district. Around 40% of small businesses do not reopen after a natural disaster, according to FEMA.
The storm compounded the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had continued to affect Asheville businesses, she said. "These small businesses that were really relying on the fourth quarter to make it through to spring, are just really, really struggling," she said.
Fight to rebuild
For DeHoll, whose business launched in 2018 when he and a business partner started running e-bike tours out of a running store, the storm has been disastrous.
Before Helene, the company employed around 100 people, including rafting tour guides and climbing gym employees, he said.
Now, they have one full-time staff member helping them put the pieces back together, he said. The guided tours part of their business has permanently closed, but one of the climbing gyms reopened last week. DeHoll has relocated to Denver, Colorado, where he bought an auto repair shop while helping manage the gym from afar.
In the weeks after the storm, he felt "a crushing weight, because now those six years of investing in your future are just six years of time wasted."
The storm "was a big boulder dropped in a small pond," DeHoll said. "It will continue to ripple out into our community in more ways."
He added very few business owners had gotten payouts from insurance companies, adding to the difficulty of rebuilding. "A huge amount of the city was underinsured because nobody expected an event like this," he said.
Helping the city and its small businesses recover will take "patience" and "kindness and caring from our whole community," he said.
Similarly, Nicole Will, the founder of Asheville Wellness Tours, which runs yoga retreats and other wellness events, said the storm has required her to retool aspects of the business, finding new locations to replace trails and farms that are closed indefinitely after the storm.
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There has been a "dramatic decrease" in revenue, she said. She described the "heartbreaking" loss of the "income that all of my guides were expecting," as well as the October spike in revenue that typically supports the business during its slower winter months.
"It's just this uncertainty on all fronts," Will said. "We expect to be scrappy and adaptable and flexible through 2025."
In addition to tourism and outdoor-based groups, the storm has also heavily affected the hotel and restaurant industries. Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer told CNN some service workers in the retail, hotels, and restaurants left the area immediately after the storm due to the lack of work, resulting in a worker shortage.
"Trying to restaff those businesses is a big challenge," she said.
And the hotels and restaurants that are still operating have had to shift their business models, such as restaurants serving limited menus, according to Lynn Minges, the CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association.
'A big step in the right direction'
Amid the ongoing expected losses in tourism revenue, several business owners and leaders highlighted the same need to support local businesses: funding.
Just after the storm, "We got a lot of water bottles that got sent to town, and we did not get a lot of money," said DeHoll. "And Asheville will continue to suffer for that."
Last week, Congress passed a spending bill that includes $100 billion in funding for disaster relief. Manheimer described the bill as a "big step in the right direction."
The bill refunded Asheville's Small Business Administration, which funds "absolutely critical" loans for small businesses, the mayor explained.
Minges, meanwhile, said her association is "optimistic that with the new federal package that was passed, there will be some dollars that may be available to help fund business owners directly."
"These are small business owners who kind of live on thin margins already," she said. "We're trying to do everything we can to get dollars into the hands of these business owners so they can make it."
The North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association has raised over $600,000 for its own grants to support hospitality workers affected by the storm.
And the Always Asheville Fund - an Explore Asheville initiative - has raised more than $1.1 million which has been distributed to small businesses with emergency grants, according to Isley.
Manheimer pointed out Asheville had a fairly strong economy prior to the storm, boasting the lowest unemployment rate in the state.
"This is a place that's coming along and needs some temporary assistance so that it doesn't see losses during this interim period when we rebuild," she said.
"We just need, literally, we need that bridge," she said. "We need that bridge to carry us through this period of time so that we can come out on the other side of it, just like we always do."
'We need visitors now more than ever'
Amid the lingering aftereffects of the storm, Asheville officials are emphasizing the city is open for business and ready to host tourists.
"We are open for business, and we do need your business," said the mayor. "There are some parts that are going to take longer to recover, but there's plenty of parts that are open and you can enjoy."
Manheimer added because so many people "saw incredible devastation on their television sets for a long time, right of this area," it's "hard to imagine that it could recover quickly at all." But in some parts of the city, "you'd never even know there was a storm."
Will, the owner of Asheville Wellness Tours, suggested visitors planning a trip to the city intentionally incorporate small local businesses into their travels.
"The positive impact of a guest's visit to our area can be dramatically enhanced by adding one (or more!) nights beyond what they'd normally plan," she said. She urged tourists to "spend that extra time intentionally, making sure to interact with small local businesses they might have overlooked in the past."
Isley touted the resilience of the Asheville community.
"In western North Carolina, many people have talked about the strength of the Appalachian people and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps," she said. "That spirit and heart has been on full display since in the wake of Helene."
More than a thousand of Explore Asheville's local partners have been able to reopen since the storm, she added.
"Asheville residents are welcoming these visitors to our community," she said. "We need visitors now more than ever."
She mentioned there are also ways for people to support Asheville businesses from afar without visiting, like making online purchases from Asheville-based creators. Will also suggested people who want to support Asheville can donate to funds like Mountain BizWorks and other organizations that support small businesses.
"Travel and hospitality has been a part of the fabric of our community, literally, for generations," said Isley.
Asheville "has been a space for wellness and refuge and creativity, and we just really invite visitors to come to support that and ensure that it stays for generations to come."
Editor's Note: Featured video is from a previous report.
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