Stunning Video Shows North Carolina Lake Packed With Ruins Of Nearby Village After Storm

Stunning video and images out of western North Carolina show a popular mountain lake eerily packed with the ruins of a nearby village after powerful wind and floodwaters brought by Hurricane Helena ripped through the area late last week.

One video taken Sunday by a Charlotte, North Carolina, city councilman shows the usually picturesque Lake Lure coated with splintered wood, trees, fragmented docks, boats and other various items.

Councilman Tariq Scott Bokhari, who said he shot the video during a day trip to the area to assist friends and determine how outsiders can help, described the scene as post-apocalyptic on social media.

Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and its hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. Its so overwhelming you dont even know how to fathom what recovery looks like, let alone where to start. Going to be a long path to recovery that pic.twitter.com/HnyxwyQB76

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Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and its hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. Its so overwhelming you dont even know how to fathom what recovery looks like, let alone where to start. Going to be a long path to recovery that pic.twitter.com/HnyxwyQB76
Tariq Scott Bokhari (@FinTechInnov8r) September 29, 2024

What I saw was really hard to describe, almost incomprehensible when you think about the magnitude of the impacts, he told HuffPost by phone Monday. In that video that I posted, (its) just a sea of things. You really have to focus your eyes on individual items to get a sense of just how big and significant of an event it is.

Debris from surrounding homes and the nearby village of Chimney Rock rushed into the lake after more than a foot of rain deluged the area, approximately 30 miles southeast of Asheville, which suffered similar devastation.

It was essentially just a moving blender that was just tearing through everything in its path, Bokhari said of the swell of debris that consisted of metal and concrete.