Scars on the Mountain
Residents of North Carolina’s mountain communities confront the lasting wreckage of Hurricane Helene after the storm stalls inland and floods the land around Mount Mitchell. Scars on the Mountain follows the people of Yancey County as Hurricane Helene stalls over North Carolina in late 2024 and unleashes catastrophic inland flooding around Mount Mitchell. Homes, roads, and bridges vanish under sudden torrents while isolated hollows lose power and contact with the outside world. Survivors pick through mud-choked debris fields that once held farms and small businesses. Local crews and neighbors begin the first hard days of clearing wreckage with whatever tools remain. The camera stays with ordinary families as they register the scale of what the mountains have lost and start the slow work of accounting for the living and the missing. In the weeks that follow, the same communities organize