U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday stressed the need to build resilient and safe roads and bridges after the extreme flooding caused by Helene last week in western North Carolina.

“The most important thing is to make sure that any solution, temporary or permanent, is going to be safe and reliable for communities who have been through so much,” he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1.

The damage caused by the storm is unlike anything seen in the region before. Many residents were not prepared for the severe flooding the storm brought. Major roads and bridges were damaged, including a large stretch of Interstate 40 along the Tennessee and North Carolina border.

Buttigieg said the North Carolina Department of Transportation will lead the repair and construction of the interstate. The U.S. Department of Transportation will provide technical support and emergency relief funds.

“We are looking at a massive impact and it is going to take a lot of resources and a lot of time to get things back to normal,” Buttigieg said.

In some cases, a temporary solution for road damage can be put in place while a more permanent and resilient solution will take months to complete.

Resilient solutions include “adding evacuation routes, finding more durable forms of construction,” and making sure interstates and bridges will last for the next 50 to 100 years with the changing weather patterns, he said.

Building and repairing infrastructure is not going to be cheap. The U.S. already had about $3 billion needed in relief around the country before the devastation from Helene, Buttigieg said.

Fixing the roads destroyed by Helene is estimated to be in the billions. Buttigieg said he can’t address the estimation of the cost of fixing the roads without help from Congress.

“I hope that help will be bipartisan and swift,” Buttigieg said.