News 13 got an up-close look at some of the progress made to rebuild a big part of Asheville's water system. Thanks to Hurricane Helene, tens of thousands are now going more than a week without running water.

City officials said Friday, Oct. 4, there is still a long road ahead, and some newly-released images of the storm-caused damage help explain why.

Asheville's Assistant City Manager Ben Woody called the damage to the city's water system catastrophic during a news briefing on Friday.

New drone video and photos showed huge pieces of broken pipe sticking out from many feet below ground. The new drone video also shows some of the progress that crews have made on some of the pipelines 25 feet underground.

Most of the video was taken at the city's water distribution location along old US 70.

"You can see as we move towards that bridge, look at the level of destruction that exists," Woody said. "All that has to be rebuilt before we can even think about putting water lines in."

A lot of the piping had been installed and reinforced after a storm about 20 years ago, but it was still no match for Helene's powerful wind and fierce flooding.

As for how long it will take to rebuild, for now, that's something both the city and the county aren't saying.

"I appreciate the question, and we want to keep the community informed. That's why we're here today showing video images, but your ask is logistically impossible. We are just over a week from being struck by a severe hurricane," Woody explained.

This was an issue News 13 raised Wednesday evening with Mayor Esther Manheimer.

"I'm not an engineer, but I don't know how you can build a system that can withstand a thousand-year flood situation like we just experienced," she said. "If you had all the money in the world, you probably could, you probably could."

She also addressed whether anyone had raised any issue with the system in the last 20 years.

"No, because it was rebuilt with redundancy," Manheimer said.