A year since Hurricane Helene rocked the mountains, communities in western North Carolina are still reckoning with the devastation it caused.

Buncombe , Henderson , Yancey and other counties will hold memorials on the anniversary, Sept. 27, to honor the 108 lives lost in the state due to the storm.

The hurricane first made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 and churned its way through Georgia and South Carolina before arriving in North Carolina the following day.

Helene dumped a record-breaking 5 inches of rain per hour on the western part of the state, whose soil was already soaked from downpours earlier in the month, according to the National Weather Service . This led to historic flooding that triggered nearly 2,000 landslides.

North Carolina’s Governor Office estimates that H

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