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Driver dies after crashing on hurricane-damaged highway in North Carolina

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Driver dies after crashing on hurricane-damaged highway in North Carolina
FILE- Damage from Hurricane Helene flooding is seen along eastbound lanes of Interstate 40 near the North Carolina state line Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Cocke County, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV via Pool)

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A driver has died after going around a barricade on a hurricane-damaged North Carolina highway that became a symbol of Helene’s destruction, then driving off the roadway, officials said.

Photos of Interstate 40 with multiple lanes washed out by Helene near the Tennessee state line garnered widespread attention in the days after the storm as the region was largely cut off by numerous road closures.

Emergency workers from Tennessee and North Carolina responded to a report of a crash involving a vehicle that went off the collapsed road and down an embankment on eastbound I-40 on Saturday night, according to a news release from the Junaluska Community Volunteer Fire Department.

Crews rappelled down the embankment to reach the vehicle on its side about 100 feet (30 meters) from the road, the fire department said. Images from the scene show a worker trying to reach the crumpled, white vehicle at the bottom of a steep, rubble-covered slope. The driver, the only person in the vehicle, was extricated and taken to a hospital.

The driver, identified as Patricia Mahoney, 63, of Southern Pines, North Carolina, died later that night, according to Sgt. Brandon Miller of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, which is investigating the cause of the crash. She got on the highway around the 7-mile marker, headed westbound in eastbound lanes and went off the road around the 4-mile marker where the road ends. An autopsy is scheduled. There’s no indication of why she went around the barricade, Miller said.

The highway has been closed since late September when flood waters from Hurricane Helene washed away the interstate’s eastbound lanes in four long swaths along the Pigeon River, but the North Carolina Department of Transportation has said it expects to reopen one lane in each direction by the new year.

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The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. The Trucker Media Group is subscriber of The Associated Press has been granted the license to use this content on TheTrucker.com and The Trucker newspaper in accordance with its Content License Agreement with The Associated Press.
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