HEARTBREAKING

North Carolina Region Made Famous From ‘Dirty Dancing’ Decimated by Hurricane Helene

One local in the town of Chimney Rock said the town is “now a river.”

A mountain region of North Carolina where Dirty Dancing was filmed has been severely damaged by floods caused by Hurricane Helene, according to local reports. Lake Lure, the town which has previously held an annual festival celebrating its ties to the 1987 movie, saw its town hall and police station destroyed in the natural disaster, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. Residents say the neighboring town of Chimney Rock—which also boasts links to Dirty Dancing—was almost completely destroyed by flooding. “Everything along the river is gone,” Tracey Stevens, who worked at the now-destroyed Chimney Rock brewery, told the Citizen-Times. “What was once a town is now a river. It’s beyond anything I can imagine.” A lot of debris also washed into the lake, with one Lake Lure resident Jim Larson telling the newspaper that the water now reeks of propane and sewage. “This used to be the most beautiful, most pristine water and now no one will be able to swim in it for years,” Larson said.