Virginia Tech to lead research into hurricane impacts on southern Appalachia

by Shannon Heckt, Virginia Mercury
December 11, 2025

Over a year after Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southern Appalachian region from Georgia to Southwest Virginia, Virginia Tech staff and students are leading research into the storm’s lasting environmental impacts – with a focus on North Carolina, which experienced the most catastrophic damage in the September 2024 storm. 

The university’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture through an $8.8 million grant to conduct field work in early 2026. Virginia Tech will be tasked with hiring a staff of 20 people to begin collecting data on aquatic and forest ecosystems. 

The aim is to have field teams assess watersheds that were impacted by the storm to identify high-need areas where remediation is necessary to restore ecosystems or bolster public safety. The initial focus will be on North Carolina and Virginia.

“For the university, and especially for our students, we get this access to funding opportunities for experiential learning and opportunities for graduate student projects,” said Joel Snodgrass, head of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. “It works a lot like most of the other embedded federal scientists that we have with us.”

The teams will be looking for areas that were damaged that may be still susceptible to mudslides, debris jams in waterways and other risks. Infrastructure such as bridge crossings, culverts and trestles will be evaluated to make sure they remain safe for public use.

Virginia took on an estimated $4 billion in damages, and three people in the state died as a result of the storm; 250 people perished in other states. Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of debris were blown around the region in Virginia, much of it clogging waterways in the southwest leading to dozens of trestles and bridges being completely destroyed or heavily damaged.

In some areas of the state, floodwaters reached over 31 feet on the New River, disrupting the flow of smaller streams that feed into the river. Changes like that have led to shifts in rebuilding efforts and researchers will assess what the altered stream movements mean for the area’s habitats and animals.

They will also be taking a close look at fish and threatened wildlife such as the eastern hellbender salamander to find out if the storm will have lasting population effects. 

Work to collect data in the field will begin in early 2026. By 2030, the team is slated to produce an extensive report to give data on the environmental impacts of the storm and potential remediation recommendations to make the forests more resilient against any future natural disasters.

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