North Carolina lawmakers warn recovery from Hurricane Helene could take “years.”

Western North Carolina could face a long recovery from Hurricane Helene, Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., warned early Monday.

“Some have been harder hit than others, but it's a very, very difficult problem to reach them, get people out of their homes or driveways that have been washed away, and we're actually still in a rescue mode now with so many people,” he said FOX Business' Cheryl Casone told “Mornings with Maria.”

“The water is slowly receding, but it will take years for the western part of the state to recover.”

AUTHORITIES LAUNCH MAJOR SEARCH AND RESCUE EFFORT AFTER HELENE DEVASTATES NORTH CAROLINA, AND MORE HEADLINES

Friends talk after canoeing for 32 minutes on the flooded South Fork New River and ending up on a washed out road on September 27, 2024 in Boone, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Rain pooled in the valleys last week, flooding rivers and washing away homes, including in the community of Chimney Rock southeast of Asheville, one of many towns devastated by catastrophic flooding that washed away parts of the Tar Heel State.

The inland mountainous region in the western part of the state suffered unprecedented damage as rain from higher elevations drained into valleys.

“Almost the western third of the state is completely destroyed. When we get storms here in the East (part of the state), we have farmland, we have a lot of open land and the water is drained. There are those over in the west.” “There are so many mountains that drain the water into ravines, into rivers that are at the foot of the mountain hill. The water just rises very quickly,” Murphy explained.

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Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday, February 28, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“What you see now, Asheville, many other smaller towns are destroyed and completely inundated with water. Many of them are right on rivers, so that's a disaster. That's awful. And a lot of people.” They are stranded. There is no road there to the west.

Helene headed toward North Carolina after ravaging Florida's west coast as a Category 4 storm, unleashing its wrath on parts of Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still without power in the region and at least 101 deaths have been reported.

FOX Weather contributed to this report.