A Boxing Day survey of storm devastation off the beaten path Ridgetops look like they’ve been bombed. Riverbeds are scoured, banks ripped open and lined with trash. Trees that once obscured the views are uprooted, toppled and lying in ranks. You’ve likely seen post-Helene images from western North Carolina. Many are of the River Arts District in Asheville and of devastation in nearby Swannanoa to the east. The Washington Post this week profiled Swannanoa flood victims from a row of mill houses left over from the days of the Beacon blanket factory, long gone. A month ago, I told readers the region was out of the news but not out of the woods. That’s still true. Except on Boxing Day I surveyed some of the worst damage myself for the first time and came home stricken. The photos cannot convey the impact of the storm where news crews don’t go. The bottom fell out of the sky on Sept. 25, two days before the remnants of Hurricane Helene even reached WNC. The rainfall was torrential and the ground saturation thorough. When the winds arrived on Friday morning, trees, big ones still in leaf, leaned over and fell everywhere in the city, shredding power lines and snapping power poles. Only more so did along exposed ridges. Picture the bomb damage in Gaza, only with trees instead of concrete. Where chainsaw crews cut downed trees off remote roadways, their carcasses line the highway for miles. When some agency will remove the debris,…