(WJAR) — NBC 10 News has wrapped up its on-the-ground coverage of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath in the southeast. Hurricane Helene ripped through Florida before downgrading to a tropical storm. But it was still as it moved across Western North Carolina. The natural disaster destroyed entire towns, homes, businesses and lives.

The National Park Service has reopened U.S. 441, also known as Newfound Gap Road, which runs through Great Smoky Mountains National Park between Cherokee, North Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. As on the parkway, commercial vehicles are prohibited on U.S. 441 through the park.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Sunday he ordered another 500 active-duty troops to move into western North Carolina and assist with the response and recovery efforts after the deadly and devastating Hurricane Helene.

Initial impacts from Helene — which hit the Carolinas as a tropical storm — are over. But hundreds of thousands are still without power, dozens of roads are closed, and risks of flooding remain.

A week after Hurricane Helene roared through, the smell of death overpowers the cool mountain air over the isolated twisting roads of devastated rural western North Carolina.

Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 26 as a Category 4 storm, causing widespread destruction across western North Carolina. The hurricane's catastrophic flooding and high winds devastated communities,