HENDERSONVILLE, North Carolina — Two months to the day after the remains of Hurricane Helene brought unprecedented devastation into the mountains of North Carolina, the remarkable damage is still plain to see. So, too, though, is the good old American pluck.

On a steep curve a few miles up Finley Cove Road, to the west and above Hendersonville proper, half the road remains collapsed in a mangle of rocks, dirt, steel, wires, and asphalt. All the way up and down the road, new vistas present themselves via open spaces where trees by the thousands have fallen. At the bottom of the hill, where otherwise unremarkable Mud Creek turned into a raging torrent, a large grocery store, bank, and other businesses remain shuttered due to flood damage behind “Keep Out” wire fencing, with reopenings not expected until the new year. Around the bend, ruined trailer homes remain surrounded by heaps of flotsam, a testament to Helene’s human toll.