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

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.

Hurricane Helene was a historic storm that will be on the minds of those affected for years to come. During the evening of Sept. 26, the storm made landfall along Florida’s Big Bend area as a category 4 with wind speeds of 140 mph.