ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Nearly two years after Tropical Storm Helene brought much of Western North Carolina’s economy to a sudden halt, the numbers tell a mixed story.

People are spending money again. Visitors are returning to many mountain communities. Some counties have pushed past their pre-Helene tourism numbers.

But the recovery hasn’t reached everyone — or everywhere.

Tourism-supported employment remains below pre-storm levels across the 16 hardest-hit counties studied by the N.C. Rural Center. Visitor spending in Buncombe County has yet to recover, and more than half of the businesses responding to a regional survey this spring said they still needed help to stabilize or fully recover.

Taken together, the latest state and regional data show an economy that has made substantial progress since September 2024 but remains uneven nearly two years after the storm.

One of the clearest divides is tourism.

Tourism recovery varies across WNC

North Carolina set another tourism record in 2025, with visitors spending $37.2 billion statewide, up 1.3% from 2024, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Western North Carolina was a different story depending on where you looked.

Visitor spending in the Smoky Mountains and Cherokee region increased 4.3 percent in 2025, while the High Country posted a 2.5 percent increase. Asheville and the Foothills, however, recorded another 0.7 percent decline.

The differences become even clearer at the county level.

Buncombe County, home to Asheville and the largest tourism economy in the mountains, recorded about $2.6 billion in visitor spending in 2025. That was down 2.1 percent from 2024 and roughly 13 percent below its 2023 level.

Despite the decline, Buncombe remained North Carolina’s third-largest county for visitor spending in 2025, behind only Mecklenburg and Wake counties.

Elsewhere in the mountains, the picture was brighter.

Henderson, Jackson, Yancey and Watauga counties all finished 2025 with visitor spending above their 2023 levels. Yancey County, one of the communities hit hard by Helene, recorded a 5.5 percent increase from 2024 to 2025.

Jackson County’s visitor spending increased 5.1 percent, while direct tourism employment there rose 7.3 percent, the largest percentage increase of any North Carolina county.

But Rutherford County remained well behind its pre-storm visitor spending, as did Madison, Mitchell, McDowell, Transylvania and Polk counties.

There is no single recovery story across Western North Carolina.

Jobs have been slower to return

A recent N.C. Rural Center analysis found visitor spending in 16 of the counties most affected by Helene had fallen by more than $300 million between 2023 and 2025. Most of that decline occurred from 2023 to 2024, with losses slowing considerably during 2025.

Jobs have been slower to come back.

The 16 counties had nearly 37,000 jobs supported by visitor spending in 2023. By 2025, that number stood at 34,442 — more than 2,000 fewer jobs than before the storm and the lowest level since 2020.

Buncombe County accounted for the largest share of the decline.

That follows a pattern state economists were already seeing during the first year of recovery.

An N.C. Department of Commerce analysis released in September 2025 found employment in seven heavily affected counties — Buncombe, Henderson, McDowell, Madison, Mitchell, Rutherford and Yancey — dropped 7 percent from a year earlier immediately after Helene.

By March 2025, employment was still 3 percent below the previous year’s level.

Taxable sales and purchases came back much faster.

They fell by about 20 percent immediately after Helene in both the Asheville metropolitan area and the seven-county region. By December 2024, taxable sales and purchases had returned to prior-year levels and continued climbing during the first half of 2025, according to Commerce.

Electricity demand showed a similar recovery, suggesting overall economic activity had returned more quickly than employment and tourism.

For many businesses, the recovery has been slower.

Small businesses still feel the strain

Riverbird Research, a division of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, has surveyed Western North Carolina businesses three times since the storm.

The surveys represent participating businesses rather than all businesses across Western North Carolina.

In spring 2025, 90 percent of respondents projected some revenue loss related to Helene. More than 30 percent estimated losses of 51 percent or more.

Conditions improved over the following year, but the spring 2026 survey found significant financial strain remained.

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they were operating below break-even, while 58 percent reported operating at or above break-even. Seventy-six percent estimated they had suffered some Helene-related revenue loss, and 54 percent said they still needed support to stabilize or fully recover.

The majority of businesses responding to the first survey had fewer than 25 employees. Many also reported effects from the storm even though they weren’t in flood zones, citing road closures, power outages, debris and other infrastructure problems.

Those businesses are also trying to recover at a time when the broader economy has become more challenging.

North Carolina’s Office of State Budget and Management reported this year that job and wage growth slowed across the state and nation during 2025.

Statewide, nonfarm proprietors’ income, which OSBM uses as a proxy for small-business profits, remained about 4 percent below its late-2024 level through the end of 2025.

That makes separating Helene’s lingering effects from broader economic pressures increasingly difficult as the storm moves further into the past.

Some of the most comprehensive measures aren’t available yet.

County-level gross domestic product data for 2025 are not scheduled for release until December 2026, meaning economists still don’t have one of the broadest measures needed to compare the region’s economic output before and after Helene.

What is available shows a recovery moving at different speeds.

Taxable sales and purchases came back relatively quickly. Tourism spending has rebounded in several mountain counties, and statewide tourism has reached record territory.

But tourism jobs remain below 2023 levels across the hardest-hit counties studied by the Rural Center. Buncombe County’s massive visitor economy remains behind where it was before Helene, and some small businesses say they are still trying to regain their footing.

Two years after Helene, Western North Carolina’s economy has come a long way from the weeks and months after the storm.

The numbers show it still hasn’t made it all the way back.