News

CVS reopens months after Helene

Maureen Cormier, a senior vice president at CVS, cuts a ribbon while celebrating the reopening of a store closed in Hendersonville after Hurricane Helene. CVS leaders Devon Peightal and Jennifer hold the ribbon for Cormier.

By Amy McCraw, Published: May 12, 2025

Emergency responders gave employees of the CVS on South Main Street just 20 minutes to evacuate on the afternoon of September 26.

The southern end of Hendersonville where the store is located was beginning to flood well ahead of Hurricane Helene’s arrival early the next morning, and emergency officials worried if the store stayed open longer than a few more minutes workers there would be stranded.
Little did those employees know when they gathered their belongings and rushed out of the store that afternoon it would be eight more months before they could again come to work in the building.
CVS celebrated the reopening of the store and the return of 100 percent of its staff on Monday with a ribbon cutting and remarks from company leaders.
Maureen Cormier, a senior vice president at CVS, told those gathered for the event that she was in awe of the work done to renovate the building and “excited we are open for the community again.”
Cormier also noted that the CVS is one of the first stores to reopen in the South Main Street area after the storm.
The Fresh Market across the road from the CVS remains closed along with several other businesses on the south end of Hendersonville that were devasted during the hurricane. The nearby McDonalds on Monday appeared to be on course to reopen soon with “Now Hiring” signs located in front of the restaurant on Spartanburg Highway.
A representative from N.C. Governor Josh Stein attended the ceremony and congratulated CVS for reopening the store. U.S. Rep. Chuck Edward sent a letter to the store’s team recognizing them for their hard work.
Of all the CVS locations in Western North Carolina, Hendersonville’s South Main Street store sustained the most damage during Helene and took the longest to reopen, Brian Bache, a CVS regional director, said after the ceremony.
Bache visited CVS stores in Black Mountain and Swannanoa before coming to Hendersonville four days after Helene.
“We were so fortunate in both those locations. Black Mountain was untouched. Swannanoa opened quickly,” he said. “This was the hardest hit. We knew we wouldn’t be open soon.”
Flooding left four feet of water inside the store and caused extensive damage to its interior. Photographs on display during Monday’s ceremony showed the building’s saturated carpet with the contents of its shelves scattered in piles along the floor.
“What we thought would take two or three months turned into eight,” Bache said of the work to first gut the structure and then renovate its interior.
Employees who worked at the location were given jobs at other stores for the months it took to reopen.
A trailer the company usually uses during hurricanes in Florida was also stationed outside the CVS to allow people access to the store’s pharmacy while work continued inside the store.
Bache said CVS never seriously considered closing the store after the storm and decided to do what need to be done to reopen.
“It just takes a while,” he said.