A little more than a month after the remnants of Hurricane Helene killed residents, destroyed homes and businesses, and felled thousands of trees in western North Carolina, workers at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C., got a round of applause Wednesday when they stood a tree up — a 28-foot Fraser fir that will be one of 57 Christmas trees displayed this holiday season in the estate’s 19th-century mansion.
The Biltmore, a major driver of tourism to the area, and other local travel businesses are nervously waiting to see how many visitors will come to tour the house and grounds once the property reopens Saturday — and help rejuvenate an important sector of the regional economy that Helene knocked flat.
“That’s going to help,” said Vince Charbonneau, managing partner of the local Twisted Laurel Restaurant Group, which owns a brewery, a catering business and two restaurants. “That’s a signal for people outside the city that it’s OK to come back.”
Government officials, including Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, asked prospective visitors to stay away from Asheville and western North Carolina in the days immediately after Helene. The storm in North Carolina killed 101 people, according to the most recent count from the state’s health department, and also heavily damaged roads, knocked out Asheville’s water system and forced the closure of most businesses and attractions.
The official guidance about visiting changed to proceed with caution in the middle of October, typically one of the region’s most lucrative months for travel-related businesses with visitors flooding in to see fall colors. Those businesses and workers typically rely on October profits and wages to bank a financial cushion ahead of the lean first quarter of the following year.
Now, travel-reliant businesses from restaurants to Airbnbs are gradually reopening. But many top attractions remain closed, and people in the industry say tourists are still a rare sight.
Julieta Fumberg, a visual artist and photographer, said “just a handful” of people had visited her studio, one of the few businesses open in Asheville’s River Arts District. “It feels like wintertime,” she said.
Tourism, according to the local economist Tom Tveidt, accounts for 14 percent of private employment in the four counties centered on Asheville.
Helene’s destruction upended tourism as well as daily life. Floodwater swamped two areas of the city that are major tourist draws, Biltmore Village and the River Arts District. Interstate 40, the region’s main route to the west, is closed at the Tennessee state line for an indefinite period. The portion of Great Smoky Mountains National Park closest to Asheville also remains closed, as does much of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway.
Helene was a focus of national news coverage for days, and people in some towns west of Asheville with relatively little damage said that coverage unnecessarily scared off tourists.
Chris Cloer, owner of Crystal Mountain Gem Mine in the town of Brevard, about a 45-minute drive southwest of Asheville, said Brevard is in good condition. But October’s business at his rock shop, which includes an indoor flume where people can pan for gems, was a quarter of what he normally sees. Potential visitors who saw images of Helene’s destruction elsewhere, he said, “assumed that that’s what the whole area looks like.”
Asheville’s immediate problem is the havoc Helene wreaked on its water system. Water resumed flowing through system pipes in mid-October, but because Helene stirred up so much sediment in the system’s main reservoir, that water is unsafe to drink without boiling. City officials decline to say when that will change.
“Potable water is the holy grail,” said Vic Isley, president and chief executive of the Explore Asheville tourism bureau. Some hotels and restaurants are trucking in clean water, she said. Others have stayed closed instead.
At the Biltmore, potable water is not a problem because the estate draws its water from its own wells.
Chase Pickering, vice president for guest experience at the Biltmore, said officials there do not know what level of activity to expect during November and December, when elaborate Christmas decorations in the past have drawn the estate’s largest number of visitors annually. “We are in uncharted territory,” he said.
Some 1.3 million visitors come to the Biltmore each year, drawn to the 1895 mansion that contains art and antiques, as well as to gardens and grounds designed by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The lowest standard nightly rate for an available double room in one of the two Biltmore hotels in November is $360, according to the Biltmore website, and many rooms run the $600 to $700 range nightly.
The Biltmore House, two hotels, a winery and other major buildings that are part of the estate saw little damage from Helene, Mr. Pickering said, and on Wednesday, most of the 8,000-acre property visible from roads looked much as it does in any year, though dozens of fallen trees lay in some spots.
The company had 2,400 employees before Helene threw many out of work, Mr. Pickering said. More than half have returned, he added.
The breweries, bars, shops and restaurants in Asheville’s downtown are other tourist draws. The neighborhood sits on a hill and saw little damage, but many businesses there have reduced hours because of sparse visitor traffic. Some are still closed.
Harley Burns had worked as a server at a downtown restaurant, but received a layoff notice in October. Helene also toppled a giant oak tree onto Mx. Burns’ home in nearby Black Mountain, destroying it.
Mx. Burns has moved seven times since, and said they do not know what the future holds.
“My expenses are doubling and my income is nonexistent at this point, besides unemployment,” Mx. Burns said.
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