A question of major concern to many in North Carolina and beyond, following Hurricane Helene’s devastation in the mountains has been, “What about the Christmas trees?” Western North Carolina is a major producer of Fraser firs and other popular holiday varieties. Larry Smith’s trees have been selected national winners in the White House Christmas tree competition, and he provides trees to the president and others free of charge each year. Smith says, not to worry. Most of the trees came through the storm just fine.
“By far, all of the harvest of old Christmas trees, you know, are higher up on the mountainsides. There’s going to be, you know, we’re going to harvest, and there’ll be a chose-and-cut. I’m telling people, if they want to help farmers and the community, to buy a real North Carolina Fraser fir. They’ll help us get our roads back and our buildings back, and help the community also.”
He grows about 40,000 trees with his brother, and harvests about a tenth of that each year. But the challenge will be getting the trees down the mountain.
“I think the biggest concern for the growers is the get the infrastructure back in place, especially the roads to where we can get, you know, tractor and which I, you know, I’m smaller, but where the tractor and trailers are allowed to get in there and on roads, you know, to haul the trees out.”
It’s been more than two weeks since Helene and Smith, like many others, still has no electricity.
“They broke a pole in a bottom like where we generally raise pumpkins, and it’s just muck, you know, so they can’t get in there to set that pole until it dries up, you know. And I’ll be fine, you know. But it’s just, you know, and it’s getting colder, and I just feel like, I say I’m blessed.”
No one who lived and worked in the path of Helene was unscathed. Smith says every farmer has a story.
“There’s some farmers that, you know, had more losses than others. I mean, I had a barn that washed away that my grandfather built, but we got most of our equipment moved, you know, in as far as tractors and trailers that we haul the trees on in vehicles. We did lose a couple vehicles, but they were older, and so it’s going to be a challenge. I mean, every day, we’re making progress.”