Five months after Hurricane Helene severed a critical Appalachian freight corridor, a 12-mile stretch of Interstate 40 through North Carolina’s Pigeon River Gorge reopened Saturday.

A stretch of Interstate 40 through the western North Carolina mountains is reopening to traffic this weekend, months after Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding collapsed portions of the road, partially restoring the major travel connection with eastern Tennessee.

I-40 reopened with one lane going in each direction at the Tennessee-North Carolina state line. This comes five months after the interstate was severely damaged during Hurricane Helene.