A stretch of Interstate 40 through the western North Carolina mountains is reopening to traffic this weekend, months after Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding collapsed portions of the road.

After a five-month closure due to Hurricane Helene, a 12-mile stretch of I-40 near the Tennessee border will reopen on Saturday.

It will cost $60 billion for North Carolina to recover from Hurricane Helene, according to the latest state estimate. “The challenges in relation to this are so enormous,” Thomas Chandler, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University,