Two Years After Helene, Warren Wilson College Lands $300,000 to Help Heal Western North Carolina’s Rivers and Prepare for Future Resilience

Two years ago Hurricane Helene sent the Swannanoa River surging over its banks, reshaping the valley that Warren Wilson College (WWC) calls home. Now the College’s Center for Working Lands (CWL) has received $300,000 in federal funding to help communities across Western North Carolina restore the rivers and streambanks damaged by the storm.

The grant will fund a series of Post-Helene River Restoration and Resilience Workshops led by the CWL and its Swannanoa River Stewards Crew. As one of only ten work colleges, Warren Wilson requires every student to work on a crew, with an emphasis on work-learning that ties on-campus jobs to academics and community engagement. The River Stewards are one of those crews, focusing on restoring our rivers, repairing riverbanks, propagating riparian species, conserving aquatic wildlife and working with communities and environmental non-profits across WNC.

“Immediately after Helene, Warren Wilson College proved the value of hands on, engaged learning in helping communities and ecosystems recover from disaster,” said Dave Ellum, Dean of Engaged Learning and Working Lands. “This grant positions the CWL as a leader in carrying that work forward to build more resilient human and non-human communities in the face of a changing climate.”

Of the total award, $200,000 supports the CWL’s own work in the Swannanoa Watershed and $100,000 goes to partner organizations from throughout WNC named in the project. The money comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and flows through a partnership between the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The effort supports riparian restoration in the Nolichucky, French Broad, Pigeon, Tuckasegee and Little Tennessee river watersheds.

A valley and a river transformed

When Helene struck in late September 2024, it caused more than 2,000 landslides and record flooding across the region. Few places felt it more than the Swannanoa Valley, where floodwaters destroyed homes, businesses and roads and changed the course and ecology of the river itself.

The damage to the region’s waterways went far beyond what was visible from the road. Mussels, amphibians, fish and aquatic insects were swept away. Some river channels were rerouted entirely. Trees that had shaded the water and held the banks in place were uprooted and washed away.

In some places, the recovery made things worse. Some cleanup crews used riverbeds as roads, crushing streambank habitat and rare mussel populations. Crews also cleared live trees and plants along the water’s edge, which sent more soil into the rivers. Without a shading canopy, water temperatures climbed during the following summer.

“The ecological damage to the river was overwhelming, but our community’s response was quick and coordinated,” said Pete Erb, CWL Coordinator and River Stewards Crew Supervisor. “Within just weeks, students, faculty and staff spent countless hours planting live stakes and working to restore our river. That resilient spirit and love for the river has only grown in the last two years, leading to more opportunities for students to learn and contribute to river conservation.”

Hands-on training, plants in hand

The workshops will focus on riparian buffers, which are the strips of native trees, shrubs and grasses that run from a river’s edge anywhere from 10 to 200 meters up-slope, depending on the terrain. These buffers control erosion, keep pollution out of the water, and protect habitat for aquatic species found nowhere else on Earth, like the Appalachian elktoe. That federally endangered mussel, found only in North Carolina, helps keep water clean and signals a river’s overall health, which makes their recovery a priority for the region.

Free public workshops will be led by the CWL’s River Stewards Crew and other nonprofits from Helene-devastated areas identified by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) including Blue Ridge RC&D, the Mills River Partnership, the Watershed Association of the Tuckasegee River, Haywood Waterways Association, and Mountain Valley RC&D.

WWC students and community members will gain experience in streambank repair, riparian buffer restoration, aquatic conservation and species recovery and native plant propagation while working directly with the organizations and leaders driving river recovery in the region. Participants will also go home with native plant materials for their own projects.

The project’s larger goal, according to TVA, is to speed up restoration in Helene-damaged areas and to build a plan for responding to river damage after future disasters. For the CWL, that means making sure that when the next storm comes, the region’s communities and ecosystems are ready to recover faster.