Exclusive | West Virginia Boys move a literal mountain to build a road so Helene victims can finally return home: Nothing short of miraculous
CHIMNEY ROCK, West Virginia — Blue-collar workers prevailed over bureaucracy in Hurricane Helene-ravaged North Carolina by rebuilding a highway at breakneck speed on their own terms – allowing residents to finally return home.Coal miners from West Virginia – whom locals have lovingly dubbed the “West Virginia Boys” – moved a mountain in just three days to reopen a 2.7-mile stretch of Highway 64 between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock washed away by Helene.Chimney Rock residents who fled the hurricane one month ago will now be able to return home for the first time within a few days, months earlier than they expected. “The river swallowed the road, so I haven’t been home since the hurricane,” Robin Phillips, 49, told The Post.“The West Virginia boys have moved the mountains.All of the roads were just gone, until now.
It’s nothing short of miraculous.“I haven’t been to my house since the flood but I know very soon I’ll be able to.Without their help, who knows, it would be months before I could access our house.”Phillips and her husband also run a campground in Chimney Rock, she said.
They have not been able to assess the state of their business since the hurricane came through.“For a small community like ours without many residents, that could easily get overlooked, it’s unreal what they’re doing,” she said of the miners’ effort.The Post previously spoke to “sole survivors” from Chimney Rock, who expected to spend a year on the open road until road access to their home was restored. On Friday, The Post watched while the miners balanced a bulldozer and two excavators on the banks of the newly-widened Broad River to shift the final 20-ton granite boulder into place to restore access between the two towns.The miners, who were all volunteering their time, were too sheepish about building a highway without legal permission to speak on the record. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), North Carolina Depar...