During the summer of 2025, WRAL reporters Eric Miller and Cristin Severance and photographers Sean Braswell and Dwayne Myers spent a week in the mountains, talking to people about the progress made and work still to be done almost a year after Hurricane Helene.
Reporters and photographers visited with dozens of people and visited towns from Fairview to Chimney Rock, Swannanoa to Marshall.
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"Each person really has their own story, their own experience, but I think many of them have been so busy with the day-to-day rebuilding process, that when they sat down to talk about it, it brought back some very strong emotions," Severance said.
For Asheville Deputy Fire Chief Chris Budzinski, the successes are shadowed by the lives that could not be saved.
"We did make upwards of 150 rescues, but unfortunately 12, I believe it was 12, we couldn't get to," he said. "It just weighs on all of us."
Cindy Williams lost her parents to Hurricane Helene.
"Sometimes it feels like it's been forever," she said. "Sometimes it's just like it just happened."
Alicia Craig and her husband ate dinner every night with his parents. They are adjusting to a new definition of family life.
She said, "We're just a really close family, so to not have them anymore, it's been really hard for all of us, my husband and my boys and myself. It's not been easy at all."
The WRAL Documentary unit will continue to listen, to tell the stories of those families and to take their concerns to government officials to ask what they are doing to help the people of western North Carolina.
Helene: What we've lost, what we've found: Watch on WRAL
"Helene: What We've Lost, What We've Found" is available to watch everywhere you stream WRAL.