N.C. driver dead after ignoring barricades on hurricane-damaged highway

A driver is dead after ignoring hurricane damage warnings and maneuvering around safety barriers, causing her to tumble down an embankment, authorities in North Carolina said.

The accident happened at around 8 p.m. Saturday on Interstate 40 East, which had been washed out by Hurricane Helene near the Tennessee state line.

The car blew past the barricades, went off the collapsed road and down the embankment, coming to rest at the bottom of Pigeon River Gorge, the Junaluska Fire Department said in a news release.

“Due to the complexity of this incident, the emergency crews on scene began rope rescue operations and rappelled down the embankment and to the vehicle involved,” the fire department said. “Crew found the vehicle with a single occupant on its passenger side an estimated distance of 100 feet from the roadway.”

North Carolina Highway Patrol extracted the driver, identified as 63-year-old Patricia Mahoney, of of Southern Pines, N.C. She was taken to a hospital, where she died later that night.

There was no evidence the driver hit the brakes, the Junaluska fire chief told Asheville ABC affiliate WLOS. There was also no indication of why she went around the barricade, highway patrol Sgt. Brandon Miller said.

Entering the highway near the 7-mile marker, Mahoney traveled west in the eastbound lanes and went off the road about three miles later, where the highway now ends, Miller said, noting that an autopsy was pending.

Police cautioned drivers to heed the warning signs and barricades for their own sake and the sake of first responders.

“We want to remind Haywood County travelers that the large orange and white ‘Road Closed’ signage and concrete barriers are there for a reason, and one of those reasons isn’t to drive around them,” the Junaluska Fire Department said in a social media plea.

The highway has been closed since Hurricane Helene’s onslaught in September, sending floods that washed out the interstate’s eastbound lanes along the Pigeon River. At least 125 people died during the storm in North Carolina alone, and the overall death toll was more than 240 across multiple states.

With News Wire Services