(CNN) New before-and-after aerial photos of Hurricane Helen's devastation in parts of western North Carolina paint a grim picture, making access difficult after the storm destroyed the state's roads and bridges.
The monster Category 4 hurricane left a path of destruction more than 500 miles southeast and killed more than 200 people, making it the second deadliest hurricane to hit the continental United States in the past 50 years.
Many of those deaths occurred in North Carolina, where the storm was characterized by prolific rainfall and historic catastrophic flooding.
The storm dumped more water on the southern Appalachians in a three-day span, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
All that water came down the mountains and in some places turned the slopes into devastating landslides that tore houses from their foundations. But in the end it all ended in rivers.
The water level rose to an all-time high, washing away dozens of bridges, roads and homes, charting a new course as it sent them downstream.
Such was the case at Chimney Rock, North Carolina, bordering the Broad River.
“Everything on both sides of the river is gone,” said the city's mayor, Peter O'Leary. “Everything that you take for granted was literally washed away. Every business, every building was destroyed or severely damaged,” O'Leary told CNN affiliate WSOC-TV.
Not just chimney rock. Even large population centers like Asheville, mistakenly considered safe havens from extreme events like Helen, have suffered extensive damage, exacerbated by climate change.
The images show house after house, partially or completely destroyed by rivers overflowing their banks to make way for new ones.
They reveal the challenges of finding those who are still missing when parts of villages no longer exist, and the scale of the challenge of recovering these places in a landscape completely transformed by nature.
CNN's Paul B. Murphy contributed to this report.
