The I-40 route through the Pigeon River Gorge is notoriously dangerous, prone to steep curves, rockslides, and landslides. Tropical Storm Helene in September caused severe erosion, closing the road for five months. Despite reopening, heavy rains caused further rockslides, forcing additional closures. The route was chosen in the mid-20th century amid political and business pressures, favoring Haywood County over Madison County despite known geological instability. Both the Pigeon River Gorge and alternative French Broad River routes presented difficult geology. Over decades, numerous slides have shut the highway, and repair costs exceed $1 billion. Experts warn instability will persist without major reconstruction.
If you’re like me, you avoid driving I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge like warm beer on a hot summer day.
Hey, if I have to circle through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas to enter Tennessee from the west and then drive east back to Knoxville, I’ll do it. Perhaps I exaggerate, but that drive through the gorge to Knoxville has always been one of white knuckles, clinched orifices and prayers that speeding semis don’t topple over on you in a curve.
It’s a terrible road — windy, steep in places and remarkably prone to rockslides and landslides, as we’ve seen over the past 10 months.
Last September, Tropical Storm Helene caused the Pigeon River to swell into a raging torrent, which undermined the interstate’s lanes and caused it to shut down for five months. The NCDOT noted that the storm “washed away about 3 million cubic yards of dirt, rock and material from the side of I-40.”
It reopened with one lane in each direction March 1, but that was short-lived. Heavy rain June 18 caused a rockslide near the North Carolina-Tennessee line, and the road was closed until June 27.
The rain-swollen Pigeon River eroded the base of I-40 lanes through the Pigeon River Gorge during Tropical Storm Helene last September. The NCDOT and its contractors have had to rebuild the embankment to get travel lanes back open. // Photo provided by the NCDOT
These slides conjured memories for a regular correspondent of mine, who emailed me this:
“I’ve always heard that I-40 through the gorge from North Carolina to Tennessee was originally planned for a different location, but that business people in Waynesville urged that it go where it is today — despite geo-engineers concluding that route was not optimal and potentially dangerous. Is that version true, or a myth that’s seeped into local lore? Please help us all with the history and backstory of the current route, one that is creating so much consternation and harm to the region. Did it have to be designed this way?”
It’s a salient point, mainly because in the 30 years I’ve been here, slides in the gorge have been about as commonplace as someone firing up a spliff on an Asheville sidewalk.
Neither gorge nor French Broad River routes were great
Not surprisingly, much has been written about all of this, including a 2009 story I wrote for the Citizen Times in which I quoted several sources who said the Pigeon River Gorge posed known geologic problems and was prone to sliding even during construction. Jody Kuhne, a state engineering geologist with the NCDOT, provided a particularly colorful interview.
In 2009, John Boyle wrote a Citizen Times article about I-40 in which he quoted several sources who said the Pigeon River Gorge posed known geologic problems and was prone to sliding even during construction.
“Lots of people these days will say highway decisions are all politics — well, hell yes, they are,’” Kuehne said. “Back at that time, Haywood County had a large paper mill, major railroad access and other industry, and Madison County just didn’t have that, except some in Hot Springs. So sure, they out-politicked Madison. The road went where the action was.”
Ever since North Carolina had passed a law in 1921 stating that all counties should have a road that connects their county seat to neighboring county seats, people in Haywood had pushed for a road to the next county west, in Tennessee. Initially, the proposal was for a two-lane road, but that changed when Dwight Eisenhower became president in the 1950s and pushed for the interstate program we have today.
Haywood business leaders and politicians wanted the interstate to come their way; leaders and politicians in Buncombe and Madison counties wanted the road to follow the French Broad River where 25/70 runs today.
While many have assailed the Pigeon River Gorge as a terrible choice because of its geology, Kuehne told me in 2009 that neither route presented a good option.
“The Hot Springs-French Broad River route has crazy geologic (stuff) you can’t even wrap your mind around,” he said, explaining that it has rounded quartz rock.
It also has just as much low-to medium-grade metamorphic rock — which is more prone to slides — as the Pigeon River Gorge. In fact, 25-70 also has been prone to slides, but they don’t get noticed as much because of its lower traffic volume, Kuehne said.
I also interviewed retired NCDOT District Engineer Stan Hyatt for that story.
“I would say today, if we had no road through Haywood, with the advances in geotechnology, we would never try to build an interstate type road down there, unless there was just no place else to put it,” Hyatt said. “It’s just an area that’s full of nothing but fractured rock waiting to fall off.”
An October 1968 Raleigh News & Observer article about the imminent “conquest” of the Pigeon River Gorge described the 23-mile portion of I-40 from near Dellwood to the North Carolina-Tennessee state line as “one of the most expensive stretches of highway ever built in the eastern United States.”
This was well known during construction and in 1968 when I-40 opened. An October 1968 Citizen-Times article quoted a Tennessee engineer who said, “It seemed like the rock and dirt had been oiled. We would blast it out, level it, ditch it, and then it would slide almost before we could get the machinery out of the way.”
The reporter noted presciently, “Engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina said that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years.”
And they have been. The area has seen dozens of slides over the years, including some that shut I-40 down for months.
Was it political? Yes, no, maybe, probably…
Sussing out the politics of all this is more difficult, as they go back to the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.
Adam Prince, who runs the blog Gribblenation, wrote a fine, well-footnoted piece about the gorge and I-40’s troubled history a month after Helene. He noted that, “I-40’s route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921.”
Prince wrote:
“A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a ‘…water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee line.’”
Prince found that a Pigeon River Gorge study, “along with a study on improving the existing US 25/70 corridor through Madison County via a water-level route along the French Broad River, was completed in late 1948.”
“The French Broad Route of US 25/70 through Marshall and Hot Springs had been the long-established travel route between Asheville and Eastern Tennessee,” Prince wrote. “Confusion on whether or not the two studies were related to each other was amplified when in December of that year, outgoing North Carolina Governor R. Gregg Cherry awarded $450,000 in surplus highway funding for the construction of the Pigeon River route.”
Construction did not follow, though, because as Prince pointed out, “it was also unknown how the route would be built.” Summer 1951 was a turning point, Prince states, as in that June “a public hearing in Asheville was held to discuss the two corridors. It was questioned if a survey of the French Broad River corridor had occurred, and the backers of that route requested another.”
In July, Gov. W. Kerr Scott awarded $500,000 toward the construction of the Pigeon River Route.
“The award cemented the eventuality of a Waynesville-to-Tennessee highway,” Prince writes. “Yet, French Broad River backers continued to push for an improved water-level US 25/70 route along that corridor.”
Two years later, the first construction project in the gorge was awarded, $1.3 million to grade 6.5 miles of “eventual roadway from the Tennessee line to Cold Springs Creek Road (Exit 7 on today’s I-40).”
Next came Eisenhower’s interstate system and lots of federal money — and more squabbling. Tennessee wanted the Haywood route, too. Prince writes:
“In 1954, Harry E. Buchanan, commissioner of the 14th Highway Division, met with Tennessee officials on how best to link the two states between the French Broad and Pigeon River routes. At a meeting of the Southeastern Association of Highway Officials in Nashville, Buchanan met with Tennessee officials — who wanted to shift the proposed Asheville-Knoxville Interstate Corridor to follow the Pigeon River.”
Tennessee officials urged the North Carolina Highway Commission to propose the changed corridor to the Bureau of Public Roads.
“The announcement immediately sparked the ire of Madison and Buncombe Counties and City of Asheville officials. The published 1947 map of proposed Interstate corridors had the Asheville-Knoxville link follow the existing US 25/70 French Broad River route.”
But, as Prince reported, “by April 1955, the North Carolina State Highway Commission had ‘tentatively confirmed’ the Pigeon River route for the new Interstate; backers of the French Broad Route then successfully delayed the final decision by urging the commission to undertake a complete study of the French Broad River corridor. The reprieve did not last long.”
Asheville engineer T.M. Howerton completed a study of two possible French Broad routes, but in June 1956 the State Highway Commission voted for the Pigeon River route. Prince states:
“While Howerton’s study pointed to a lower cost for the French Broad route by 50 percent ($15 million vs. $30 million), SHC officials estimated that the financials were the reverse, with the Pigeon River route being less expensive. They also stated the French Broad Route ‘was not feasible.’ Suspicions rose throughout the state about the Highway Commission’s decision to award without a fully sanctioned study completed.”
The NCDOT got I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge reopened in early March, with one travel lane in each direction, but heavy rains and an ensuing rockslide in June shut it down again for much of the month. // Photo provided by NCDOT
Ultimately, the Pigeon River route cost $33 million, Prince notes.
The road opened in October 1968. The first rockslide that would close the interstate occurred Feb. 12, 1969.
With all the maneuvering and machinations of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, it’s no surprise the notion lingered that the route choice was all political. But I haven’t found anything suggesting anything particularly nefarious or illegal transpired, although I’d suspect some smoke-filled, back-room shenanigans came into play.
Prince told me via email that he’s “pretty much in general agreement with (me) that most of this was out in the open,” although he did note that he had received a few “very adamant” comments that Canton’s Champion paper mill exerted strong influence.
“However, I have yet to find any information about Champion Papers publicly or privately lobbying for I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge,” Prince said.
Mark Barrett, who worked for the Citizen Times for more than three decades, covering both the state house as well as local growth and development, also delved into the I-40 politics-at-play issue, particularly in a 1989 article.
Barrett quoted the late Zeno Ponder, a Democratic political kingpin in Madison County for decades, who said the I-40 decision revolved around political allegiances, particularly those of former Democratic Gov. Cherry.
“Madison County was really a Republican county…and all the counties from Haywood west were solidly Democrat. And Gregg Cherry had put up the money for the surveys,” Ponder said.
Barrett said he’s heard rumblings about outsized influence of a governor or two over the years, but nothing that screamed “scandal.”
“Was it a political decision? Maybe, maybe not,” Barrett told me last week. “There was a political battle over it at the time, but it’s hard to tell from this distance whether one side was more influential than the other, or if engineers just decided on technical grounds.”
The headline on a Citizen Times article from Mark Barrett reads as though it could have been written the day after Tropical Storm Helene.
When I wrote that 2009 story, I noted that “at least 10 landslides have shut down the highway since 1972.”
Barrett wrote another story in July 1997 that listed 20 between 1969 and 1997, including one that involved a fatality in 1977.
NCDOT’s Helene repair project page states the estimated cost of the fix to I-40 after Helene over a 12-mile stretch at the gorge at $1 billion.
Does the future hold more slides?
The state has spent plenty of money over the years battling these slides. Barrett’s 1997 article mentioned that the NCDOT spent $14 million in 1982 on stabilizing slopes, erecting barriers and shifting portions of travel lanes farther from slopes on the four miles of I-40 closest to the Tennessee state line.
Periodic projects have recurred since.
Last October, after Helene, the NCDOT issued a brief geologic synopsis of the I-40 area from the Tennessee line to mile marker 5 in North Carolina. It first notes that the I-40 corridor through the gorge “has had a troubled history.”
“The terrain and geology of the area have proved difficult barriers to developing a resilient roadway facility, causing problems that have persisted from construction to today,” the report states. “The steep, sometimes vertical, narrow valley provides little area to establish a sound embankment, and the geology underlying the slopes proves too complex to develop stable tall, rock cuts.
“Detrimental rockfall is a common occurrence in the study area and is exacerbated by the geographically and proprietarily constricted facility corridor,” it continues. It also mentions the fixes, which have included rock anchors, rock nets, expanded catchment areas, retaining walls and scaling of loose and unstable material.
Still, unstable slopes have led to large rock falls at mile markers .4, 2.5, and 4.5, “with many smaller ones occurring over the same length of highway at differing times or the same time,” according to the report.
Part of a travel lane on I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge collapsed last December as work was ongoing to rebuild the highway. // Photo provided by NCDOT
It gets even more dire.
“Adding to the difficulty of unstable slopes is the limited area on which the supporting embankment has as a foundation,” the report states. “Embankment with steep slopes is oftentimes founded directly on bedrock which commonly has a steeply sloping surface. Channel morphology of the Pigeon River has also played a large part in the instability of certain sections of the embankment.”
In other words, it’s a river gorge with rocks that formed in an unstable way, and they’re prone to sliding.
“Erosion is accelerated in areas where the channel bends sharply against the east side of the gorge, flowing directly into the foundation of the I-40 facility,” the report states.
In that 2009 story, I mentioned that a 1997 study found 49 places along I-40 near Tennessee that were potential slide problems. Workers had installed rock bolts to stabilize the slopes, but another retired engineer said they knew at the time the bolts were not a permanent solution.
“There’s only one way to fix it so it won’t slide, and that’s to just flatten the slope out,” the engineer said. “And you might have to blast all the way to Tennessee to do that.”
In the meantime, keep an eye out when you travel through the gorge.
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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This content focuses on the history, geology, and political factors surrounding the construction and ongoing challenges of Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge. It provides a detailed, fact-based exploration of infrastructure issues, political decision-making, and local economic interests without endorsing a particular political viewpoint or ideological position. The tone is investigative and neutral, highlighting both the practical difficulties and the political considerations in a balanced way, typical of centrist or nonpartisan reporting.
www.thecentersquare.com – By David Beasley | The Center Square contributor – (The Center Square – ) 2025-07-14 09:01:00
Dan Apple left college in 1990, halfway through his degree at UNC Greensboro, believing he could succeed without finishing. After building a career in business and family responsibilities, he regretted not completing his education. Today, at age 55, Apple has reenrolled through the UNC System’s partnership with ReUp Education, a program helping about 1 million North Carolinians who left college to return. Ten UNC universities participate, offering easy reentry and financial aid. Apple appreciates the modern online learning environment and is more committed now. Since 2023, over 600 students have earned degrees via ReUp, reflecting strong institutional support for adult learners.
(The Center Square) – In 1990, Dan Apple was more than halfway through his undergraduate education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro when he decided to leave school for the workforce.
“I mistakenly thought that I knew everything and would be fine without finishing college,” Apple told The Center Square. “It didn’t take long to figure out that it wasn’t true. But by that time, I’ve had a wife, I had a kid, responsibilities. House payments.”
Apple, co-valedictorian of his high school class, did well in the business world without a degree, working first as a dispatcher for a trucking company and later owning a freight brokerage company. More recently, he has worked as a project manager for a precast concrete company.
As he grew older, Apple began to wish that he had finished college.
“Many of the people I deal with are engineers,” he said. “There are people with master’s in business administration degrees. There are lawyers. There is just a myriad of higher education that I am dealing with every day.”
He is not alone. There are an estimated 1 million North Carolinians who left college before earning their degree, according to the National Student Clearinghouse.
The University of North Carolina System is working with a company, ReUp Education, to help students like Apple return to college even decades after they left. Ten universities in the UNC System are participating, including UNC Greensboro, where Apple has reenrolled thanks to guidance from the program.
He expects to earn his degree by the end of this year at the age of 55.
“I sent in a request for information and within minutes I got an e-mail and we set up a time for a phone call,” Apple said. “It was a super easy process to get started. All my questions were answered immediately.”
His first class was a summer course in U.S. History. It was a lot different than the college classes he remembered.
“The world changed from 1990 to 2024,” he said. “There was no such thing as a laptop computer when I quit college. Now we are doing everything online.”
This time around, Apple has taken his college classes much more seriously than he did in the first round.
“I am a much better student than I ever was,” Apple said.
Shun Robertson, the system’s senior vice president for Policy and Strategy told the Center Square University System President Peter Hans has a “keen interest” in adult learners.
Since 2023, more than 600 North Carolina students have earned their degrees through the Reup program, Robertson said. The Legislature has funded financial aid options for the returning students as well.
“These are students who have already invested in their education but had to pause before completing their degree,” Robertson said. “ReUp gives us a proactive way to say, ‘We haven’t forgotten about you. We are going to help you finish what you started.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article primarily reports on an educational initiative without expressing a clear ideological stance. The content focuses on the personal story of a student returning to college and the University of North Carolina System’s program to support returning students. The language is factual and neutral, showcasing details such as the ease of re-enrollment, changes in education over time, and legislative support for financial aid. There is no evident framing or tone that favors a specific political ideology; rather, it highlights a nonpartisan effort to improve access to education for adults. Thus, the article adheres to neutral, factual reporting rather than promoting a particular political viewpoint.
SUMMARY: Scattered storms in central North Carolina bring risk of flooding, particularly around Crabtree Creek in Raleigh, following recent heavy rain that raised water levels in lakes, creeks, and rivers. Residents are urged to slow down and give first responders space amid ongoing flood watch alerts. While the weather is currently clear, areas like Raleigh and Durham remain vulnerable to flooding, especially near rippling stream townhomes. Wayne County is addressing flood risks by managing nine flood control sites, including Paige Lake and Lake Crabtree. New equipment tracks water levels and integrates with Raleigh’s early flood warning system to aid emergency response.
Stormy weather in central North Carolina will continue this week. Heavy rain could lead to flooding, especially in areas where the ground is already saturated due to Tropical Storm Chantal.
Tropical Depression Chantal caused severe flooding in Central North Carolina towns like Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, and Carrboro on July 6, inundating businesses with up to 6 feet of water. Chapel Hill’s Eastgate Crossing plaza suffered catastrophic damage, with local favorite Guglhupf Bakery losing equipment and interiors despite flood gates. Recovery is hampered by complex insurance and lease issues. Nearby University Place also faced significant flooding, yet some businesses have reopened. Hillsborough endured a water crisis after its treatment plants flooded, with the historic Eno River Mill and arts commission severely damaged. Despite setbacks, communities are committed to rebuilding and holding events like the Uproar arts festival to rally support and economic recovery.
by Jane Winik Sartwell, Carolina Public Press July 14, 2025
It wasn’t that they didn’t know their businesses could flood. They just didn’t realize how bad it could get — until Tropical Depression Chantal hit Central North Carolina last week.
Up to 6 feet of water filled shops in one of Chapel Hill’s most beloved shopping centers as Chantal’s rains pounded the area on July 6. Flooding destroyed inventory, equipment and interiors. It left local business owners, employees and customers in shock.
Across Orange County, in towns like Hillsborough, Carrboro and Chapel Hill, businesses large and small are dealing with the destruction wrought by Chantal. As recovery begins, it’s hard not to still feel underwater.
Carolina Public Press spoke with owners and community leaders in Orange County to get a sense of what things look like one week out.
Eastgate Crossing and University Place in Chapel Hill
When Sean Scott walked into Guglhupf Bakery on Monday morning, July 7, he stopped in his tracks. Chantal was gone, but the bakery’s Chapel Hill location was ruined.
He thought that perhaps the 4-foot metal flood gates would be enough to spare the bakery the worst of it. He was wrong. Water rose to five-and-a-half feet in under two hours.
“It was kind of surreal,” Scott told CPP. “No one was ready for that. There’s been some pretty catastrophic damage. All of our equipment was lost. We had to tear down the walls.”
For Scott, the next steps of recovery pose a daunting challenge.
“The legalities, the insurance, all of that stuff — it’s pretty hard to manage, especially when everything is so emotionally charged,” he said.
Guglhupf Bakery’s Chapel Hill location is at the Eastgate Crossing plaza, which is owned by a parent company called Kite Realty. Although each business has a different lease agreement with Kite, for Guglhupf, Kite is only responsible for damage to the exterior of the business.
This is just one of the complex nuances that Scott is trying to manage. He is unsatisfied by the protocol in place for this kind of event.
“There’s not a checklist or order of operations,” he said. “I think it’s a wake-up call for the town, because Eastgate is in a known floodplain. There needs to be a bit more planning involved, and a bit more transparency.”
To remedy this perceived lack of transparency, Scott says he is getting to work on a database of revenue loss and flood levels from Chantal. He feels like he was leased the property without a real briefing on the flood risk. In addition, he is attempting to renegotiate his lease with Kite Realty.
He thinks the bakery will reopen within a month. Even so, he estimates Guglhupf will lose $110,000, in addition to $150,000 in lost revenue. He knows Guglhupf will recover, but he isn’t so sure about other Eastgate businesses.
He’s planning a concert and auction event to raise money for businesses, the details of which are yet to come.
“I want to do an in-person event, instead of some Go-Fund-Me, because then you get to see your neighbors,” Scott said. “That’s just a really beautiful part of tragedy: connecting with others and creating a good energy around the disaster.”
Nearly every business in the plaza, including a Trader Joe’s grocery store, is devastated. Most of the shops will need to be gutted completely. Many have flood insurance policies in place, but they are likely inadequate to their needs this time around, due to the severity of flooding from Chantal, according to Ian Scott, vice president for advocacy of Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro.
“These are long-standing, beloved businesses,” Scott said. “Most are locally-owned, even if at first glance they look like chains. The impact of this will ripple around the community because Chapel Hill is really a hyper-local place.”
Eastgate wasn’t the only plaza in the area that flooded during Chantal.
Heavy cleanup equipment is mounted outside University Place businesses in Chapel Hill, including Stony River restaurant, on July 12, 2025, as recovery from Tropical Depression Chantal continues. Frank Taylor / Carolina Public Press
Nearby, at University Place, formerly the University Mall, flooding overtook many businesses, including The Frame and Print Shop, several restaurants and the Silverspot Cinema.
Cleanup from Chantal at these locations continued through the weekend and is likely to continue for a while at several stores. Saturday, lines of dumpsters full of garbage bags of flood-damaged goods and materials stood alongside the curb outside the University Place businesses.
The Chantal flooding impact was uneven at University Place. A few businesses, including Hawker’s restaurant, had reopened by Saturday after shorter closures.
Despite significant damage, the Frame and Print Shop was operating again. Mud and water from Chantal filled the bottom of the shop, according to owner Becky Woodruff. They lost supplies and equipment, resulting in a loss Woodruff estimates at $10,000.
Store Manager Ash Lindner (left) and owner Becky Woodruff at the Frame and Print Shop in Chapel Hill on July 12. The store reopened despite significant flooding damage from Tropical Depression Chantal on July 6. Frank Taylor / Carolina Public Press
“The main thing we’re focused on is keeping our staff healthy and employed,” Woodruff told CPP.
“We don’t have any supplies at the moment, but customers are already coming back in.”
Hillsborough businesses and Chantal
In Hillsborough, the most widespread impact of Chantal on local businesses was a boil-water advisory that was lifted Thursday. Both the town’s water treatment plant and sewage treatment plant flooded, leaving the local water supply compromised.
Durham stepped in to supply Hillsborough with water, but still, the town was still under a mandate to conserve water. That was finally lifted over the weekend.
“This is worse than anything I ever saw in the past 20 years in Hillsborough,” Hillsborough mayor Mark Bell told CPP.
“No hurricane ever produced this much water in such a short period of time. There are a lot of people and a lot of businesses scrambling.”
The flooded Eno River engulfs part of the old Eno River Mill in Hillsborough on July 7, 2025, following the passage of Tropical Depression Chantal. The building housed a charter school and the local arts commission, which were severely damaged. Frank Taylor / Carolina Public Press
In addition to flash-flooding in several places, major flooding occurred along the Eno River, inundating an old mill building that houses a charter school and the Eno Arts Commission. Many original works of art were lost in the flood. The town’s riverwalk and parks, a major attraction to the historic downtown area, will require major repairs.
By Wednesday night, downtown Hillsborough Italian restaurant Antonia’s had already begun a carry-out and delivery service, according to owner Brian Pearson.
That way, they don’t have to worry about boiling water to wash silverware and plates. Pearson says it reminds him of the COVID protocols they used in the pandemic.
Open for business after Chantal
The main message Scott Czechlewski, CEO of the Hillsborough Chamber of Commerce, wants to communicate is this: we are open for business despite the damage from Chantal.
In Chapel Hill, they too are planning their economic rebound. In the summer, though, when the UNC-Chapel Hill students are gone on break, the town can be pretty dead.
Still, Bedford and others are planning to go ahead with Uproar, the second-annual August arts festival in Orange County. One of the main locations of the festival is the now-devastated Eno Arts Mill in Hillsborough.
“After a lot of debate with my boards, staff, and our Uproar town partners, we have decided to move forward with Uproar,” wrote Katie Murray, director of the Orange County Arts Commission.
“Our capacity is challenged due to this unexpected loss of our space, but we feel like showing up for our community, especially after this devastating storm, is exactly what needs to happen right now.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article focuses on the factual reporting of flood damage and community recovery efforts in Central North Carolina without promoting a particular political ideology or agenda. It highlights local business impacts, community responses, and calls for better planning and transparency from property managers and local government. The tone remains neutral and empathetic, emphasizing human interest and practical concerns rather than ideological framing. The content avoids partisan language or policy advocacy, reflecting balanced, community-focused journalism typical of centrist reporting.
