What happens when a hurricane strikes a place 500 miles inland that is dominated by steep mountains and narrow valleys?
Torrential rain tumbles down the slopes and has nowhere to go but into streams and rivers, overflowing their banks. Winds blasting at 70-90 miles per hour rip trees from the ground, often hurling them into waterways.
Uprooted vegetation loosens soil and rocks, ultimately tumbling much of the debris down into the same streams and rivers.
Those were among the effects of Hurricane Helene, which ripped through Southwest Virginia on Sept. 27, following days of steady rain. The storm also severely impacted nearby Northeast Tennessee and Western North Carolina.
High winds and torrential rain destroyed buildings, downed trees, flooded streets and roads, and wiped out electrical infrastructure, leaving thousands without power for a week or more in some areas.
The Clinch River spilled over its banks in several areas along its roughly 135 miles in Tazewell, Russell, Wise and Scott counties. The headwaters of the Clinch emerge in Tazewell County.
As the region marks the two-year anniversary of the catastrophic storm, a Tennessee-based firm is conducting a study of conditions, including debris, in the Virginia section of the river following Helene.
River communities continue to grapple with the hurricane’s aftermath.
Before Helene struck, Tazewell County was already in the middle of a study on stream blockages, County Administrator Eric Young said in a phone interview. After Helene, that study was broadened to include hurricane damage, and it is now in its final stages, he said.
The hurricane downed a lot of trees that ended up in the Clinch and tributary streams, causing blockages that made it easier for it to flood the next time heavy rain inundates the region, Young said.
Just five months after Helene, in February 2025, Tazewell County officials faced severe flooding again, leading to a federal disaster declaration. Stream blockages from Helene made the situation much worse, he said.
“We thought we were going to lose a bridge in Richlands,” he said.
The riverbed became much more shallow in many places, Young explained.
“We had people coming to meetings, saying the river used to be at their shoulders and now is at their ankles,” he said.
During spring 2026, the Federal Emergency Management Agency worked with Tazewell County to remove seven river blockages, he said. Several “problematic” blockages remain that are not at crisis level, Young noted.
Dredging the Clinch would help reduce flooding, but getting the permits to do so would be difficult, Young said, because the river provides a habitat for many protected species, including a salamander called the eastern hellbender.
Permits would have to be obtained from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, according to the county administrator.
The February 2025 flooding devastated several communities in the region. Along the Clinch, the tiny Scott County town of Clinchport was entirely cut off from access at one point.
Helene and flooding events that followed Helene did not cause as much extensive damage in the Clinch River valley as was caused along the Holston and New rivers, according to Lou Wallace, a Russell County supervisor who serves as chair of the State Water Control Board.
However, “the valley, tributaries and river suffered due to extensive runoff, high winds and erosion, which, in turn, has caused our stream banks and forested buffers to become unstable, thus with each passing storm the situation worsens,” she explained in an email. “Our highway bridges and railroad crossings are crisscrossed with debris, which after a while causes stress on the abutments.”
New study is expected to serve the future river
The Friends of Southwest Virginia announced July 29 that Hendersonville, Tennessee-based Trutta Environmental Solutions LLC has been chosen to evaluate the Clinch River’s condition following Helene.
Friends of Southwest Virginia is a cultural heritage organization serving 19 counties and four cities in the region. The study “will document stream morphology, bank stability, debris conditions, floodplain connectivity, recreation infrastructure, and adjacent bridges, culverts and other public assets,” according to a news release.
It will also identify areas for restoration, improve public safety planning and support future applications for mitigation and recovery projects.
An Appalachian Regional Commission grant will cover the roughly $429,000 cost, Friends Executive Director Kim Davis explained in an email.
“Across much of the Clinch River corridor, local partners identified extensive woody debris following Hurricane Helene,” she wrote. “While there was flooding in some locations, much of the debris resulted from the storm and winds, with subsequent high-water events continuing to move and redistribute that material throughout the river corridor. This assessment will help identify those accumulations, evaluate their impacts and determine where debris removal is appropriate, where debris provides ecological value as wildlife habitat, and where future restoration efforts can have the greatest benefit.”
An on-the-water survey of 135 miles of river conditions was completed in late summer, and Trutta is now processing and analyzing the data, according to Brett Connell, a hydrologist and director of sales for Trutta.
Courtesy of Paul Freeman, Trutta Environmental Solutions.
The company will provide a draft report later this year, and the final report is due by Jan. 31, but the company hopes to provide it a little earlier, he said.
The survey was non-invasive, with information collected using “boat-based survey equipment, video, light detection and ranging, called LiDAR, sonar and GPS technologies. The project did not involve dredging, excavation, construction or physical alteration of the riverbed or existing structures,” Davis said.
The study will create maps and data sets that local communities and agency partners can use for planning, project development and future investments, Davis wrote.
The assessment is intended to help identify and prioritize areas where additional management, restoration or recovery efforts may be needed, Connell wrote in an email.
The data collected from the high-definition stream survey will provide information that can be used to make decisions about where future efforts and resources may have the greatest benefit, he said.
