A year after Helene, a group of raft guides embarks on a river clean-up mission

ERWIN, Tenn. — When Amelia Taylor learned that whitewater outfitters near the Nolichucky River would remain closed this season, she had to figure out how to make up for the lost income.

So she went from being a professional whitewater river guide to being a “professional trash lady,” Taylor says. “I’m very proud of it. It’s an honest day’s work.”

Taylor has been a whitewater river guide in the area for about sixteen years. She says picking up trash along the river is not terrible despite the occasional bump, scrape and bruise.

“I’m kind of a dumpster diver, so this job is fun for me ’cause I get to find useful things sometimes,” she says. “In some ways, I honestly like this job more. I like to say the trash is easier to deal with than people,” Taylor chuckles.

It’s been a year since the remnants of Hurricane Helene walloped eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina with devastating and deadly flooding, and forcing most rafting companies to cease operations.

Rivers popular for whitewater rafting reopened for the 2025 season, except for the Nolichucky.

On the morning of September 27, 2024, the storm hovered over the Southern Appalachians after it had been raining continuously for several days.

“You saw thousands of years of change in parts of the landscape happen in two hours,” said geologist and Appalachian region expert, Philip Prince.

“The Nolichucky flooding was proportionally the greatest of rivers in the region. It got literally the maximum possible effect of the Helene system all funneled down into that one river gorge,” he says. The debris flow landslides hurled chunks of railroad tracks, houses and hazardous material into the river.

The U.S. Forest Service closed the access points to the river as the year-long reconstruction and restoration were underway.

Meanwhile, outfitters had to figure out how to reinvent themselves and their businesses. They are helping to clean up debris along the river banks that big machinery was not able to pick up. Through state-funded relief grants, the outfitters are able to pay raft guides like Amelia Taylor and other out-of-work guides to go on clean-up missions.

They use the company’s big 6-person rafts and pile the garbage so high that the rapids can’t be seen in front of them. Car parts, toys, tires, household items and lots of sheet metal from the roofs of washed-out houses.

Lilly Johnson and her husband own one of the rafting companies that’s contracted to do the cleanup work. They bought the business in March of last year. Six months later, Helene hit. Then a baby girl arrived.

Johnson says while it’s been an uncertain year, at least their building is still standing, and for now, they’ll use their rafts and staff to clean up the river.

“It gives us a chance to put our guides to work,” she says. “They’re still doing what they’re trained to do, paddling down the river in a raft. We’re cleaning up our watershed so that it’s ready for us when we’re ready to get back out there.”

And they’re seeing signs of progress. Dozens of river guides are doing clean-up missions nearly every day and feel confident they’ll be able to get back on the river next year.

Trey Moore is a local paddler who knows just about every corner of the Nolichucky gorge.

He teamed up with a few outfitters to form a non-profit and work alongside local, state and federal agencies to help Unicoi County recover from its outdoor-tourism economic shortfall and river restoration.

“And we were able to go and take care of the river that has always taken care of us,” Moore says.

James Melones, a U.S. Forest Service supervisor, says he recognizes the importance of outdoor recreation in the Southern Appalachians and is confident that boat ramps and access points will reopen soon. “Our plan and priority is to have those available and working for the 2026 season, so next spring,” he says.

Moore says they have their work cut out for them.

Guides need to be retrained. It’s a new river, with new rapids and new risks. Local paddlers have started to informally refer to the river as the New-lichucky.

Moore says he is starting to see a path forward in the Nolichucky Gorge returning as the top outdoor tourism destination of the southeast. “And so this destruction and fundamental change of this insanely large geological event is an opportunity for a rebirth and an opportunity to reconnect with the river, with the community and to heal.”