By Cory Matteson
visits and even notes offering moral support, trail managers who have been through a natural disaster are reaching out to those in the midst of the process. “Hello from Nebraska!” Alex Duryea, recreational trails manager for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (outdoornebraska.gov), wrote in an Oct. 4, 2024, message to the Virginia Creeper Trail Facebook account. “So sorry to hear about the trail damage and flooding. I manage the Cowboy Trail here in NE, which experienced a national disaster- level of flooding in 2019 and am still working on repairs. It will be a lot of work but you will get it fixed!” Helene’s destructive path continued into Virginia, where high winds, flooding and landslides tore apart the eastern half of the 34-mile Virginia Creeper Trail (vacreepertrail.org). The portion running east from Damascus—known as “Trail Town USA” for the seven trails that run through town—to Whitetop through the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area was obliterated. Thirty-one trestles were damaged or destroyed. The force of water moving down the mountain rerouted streams and creeks. In his message, Duryea offered his contact info should anyone with the Creeper Trail want tips on navigating the Federal Emergency
From record wildfires burning millions of acres across southern California and Oregon, to flood - ing and landslides that battered communities along Helene’s path, 2024 saw 27 weather and climate disasters at the billion-dollar loss level recorded in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Trails are increasingly play- ing vital roles in disaster recovery and resilience measures, serving as key components of community rebuilding initiatives, as well as pathways for animals and emergen- cy personnel, and the basis for miti- gation strategies. However, trails are often among a community’s most vulnerable assets to severe weather events as well. The question be- comes not just one of response, but of how communities are prepared and engaging in resiliency efforts beforehand—and in the long term. With the prevalence of such events increasing over time, a fra- ternity of sorts is developing across trail communities to analyze and answer those questions. Through conference presentations, site Communities of Resilience provides permanent public access to the French Broad River through con- servation and recreation easements. “And stuff was everywhere. From litter to semis in the river.” When we spoke in late February, five months after the storm hit, there was still much work to be done, but Raleigh and others who spoke with Rails to Trails magazine were ener- gized to have a voice in the process. Out of the regionwide recovery ef- fort, they said, community members are cooperating at an unprecedented level, and the collective vision to rebuild Asheville with climate re- siliency at the forefront has opened up opportunities to reimagine river corridors and trails.
In mid-September of 2024, construction began on a small, symbolic stretch of trail in East Asheville, North Carolina. The first section of the 7.5-mile Swannanoa River Greenway was to run alongside the river’s southern banks and tie to an existing trail through the city’s Riverbend Park, connecting Asheville’s renowned River Arts District to an existing greenway network on the city’s west side. But about two weeks after breaking ground, the most devastating natural disaster in western North Carolina’s history brought those plans to a screeching halt. Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane— the strongest storm on record to hit that part of the panhandle—before it roared inland as a punishing tropical storm. “Our people here … always believed that the lovely mountains we live among would protect us from anything like this ever happening,” said David Nutter, a community planner and board member with Connect Buncombe (connectbuncombe.org), a nonprofit greenway advocacy group. “We didn’t believe that the Caribbean could climb up all those mountains between us and the Gulf of Mexico [now referred to as the Gulf of America]. But it did.” It brought torrential downpours, gale-force winds and historic flood - ing with it to the area, where the Swannanoa River and the French Broad River, which the Swannanoa feeds into, crested at cataclysmic levels. “When this event first hap - pened, it was like a nuclear bomb landed on us,” said Lisa Raleigh, executive director at RiverLink (riverlink.org), a nonprofit that
PHOTO: (Left) A damaged bridge along the eastern section of the 34-mile Virginia Creeper Trail | Eric Oberg.
Learn more about how communities are strategizing ways that trails can aid in natural disaster resiliency efforts: rtc.li/trails-resiliency.
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