AGAIN: Horrific storm damage will remake Western North Carolina
AGAIN. For the second time in three years, Haywood County, the highest east of the Mississippi River, experienced devastating flooding from a tropical weather system that reached mountainous Southern Appalachia’s narrow, rocky canyons and broad, lush river valleys — wiping out whole towns, inundating normally impregnable areas and crippling the communications and transportation infrastructure that powers public safety, commerce and the dissemination of information.