UNICOI COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Six months after Helene impacted the park, Lamar Alexander Rocky Fork State Park is open.
The storm certainly brought significant flooding and wind damage to the park. A trail camera placed alongside Rocky Fork Creek captured the flooding. In about five hours, the creek, which usually sits between six and eight inches, crested to 10 feet. The footage, which has over 90,000 views on Facebook, is below.
Rocky Fork State Park reopens more than 3 months after Helene
In addition to the flooding, strong winds from the remnants of Helene and multiple landslides brought down hundreds of trees across the park’s 2000 acres.
Park Manager Tim Pharis told News Channel 11 that clearing out the leftover debris required a lot of work and time.
“We started sawing a couple of days after the storm rolled through, and we sawed for probably a month and a half to two months solid. We had over 200 downed trees just in our 2000-acre park alone, many more on the Forest Service land that adjoins Rocky Fort that we also take care of,” said Pharis…