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A National Park Service employee who normally spends his time updating Washingtonians on NPS projects around the National Mall is in flood-ravaged North Carolina helping with Hurricane Helene response efforts.
Mike Litterst is currently in the town of Cherokee, acting as spokesperson for the NPS Eastern Incident Management Team — a group of first responders that goes in after there have been natural disasters in national parks or events that “overwhelm” the home park unit at any given location.
Litterst said the team he’s with is trying to clear the 469 miles of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, which stretches from south of Virginia’s Skyline Drive through western North Carolina, an area inundated by Helene.
“There are tens of thousands of trees across the roadway, and we’re seeing catastrophic damage in some places,” Litterst told WTOP. “There are, so far, nearly three-dozen rock and mudslides that need to be cleared.”
According to the NPS, the full length of the parkway is closed and closures will remain until staff can safely assess the park and clear all the damage.
“Virtually everyone, for example, on the National Park Service staff here was either impacted or knows people who were impacted by the flooding,” Litterst said. “There are employees who’ve had severe impacts to their homes. Virtually everybody was without power, water and/or internet for a matter of days.”
The torrential flooding came at a time when NPS Blue Ridge Parkway staff would be gearing up for throngs of tourists hoping to enjoy peak fall foliage on the ribbon of highway that threads through the scenic mountain landscape. But that’s unlikely to happen now, said Litterst.
“The request from the governor is ‘please do not come to North Carolina,'” Litterst said. “So leaf season will be considerably different, at least in North Carolina this year.”
The team Litterst is with will be wrapping up its work later this week. He said normally there’d be a second team coming in after them, but instead, that team is now headed to Florida with yet another hurricane set to make landfall this week.
“It’s been quite a fall for disaster recovery so far,” Litterst said.