Norfolk Southern describes its Hurricane Helene recovery efforts

Norfolk Southern Railway reopened all core routes within 72 hours of Hurricane Helene's landfall late last month, the Class I announced this week.

Helene made landfall as a deadly Category 4 hurricane in east Florida in late September, and moved through Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and North Carolina. The storm brought with it historic flooding, unprecedented damage and unanticipated topography changes to parts of the region.

After landfall, hundreds of NS railroaders got to work, restoring service and helping the NS network recover from the storm’s impact. In order to open within 72 hours of landfall, NS' engineering team cleared over 5,000 trees, repaired multiple washouts and over 50 damaged slide fences, deployed more than 400 generators and safely operated in more than 1,000 locations without commercial power, the Class I reported on its website.

The hardest hit areas were located along the NS AS Line, which runs from Salisbury, North Carolina, to Morristown, Tennessee, crossing the Eastern Continental Divide through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Asheville, North Carolina. Initial damage assessments in the area discovered 21,500 feet of track washed out, more than 50,000 feet of track damaged by scour, over 15,000 feet of fill failures and slides, and multiple bridges damaged, according to the NS report.

 On Oct. 9, engineering teams reopened the AS Line between Salisbury and Old Fort, North Carolina, as well as between Newport and Morristown, Tennessee, working, in some cases, without access to public roadways. To read more about the NS recovery effort, click here.