(Bloomberg) -- North Carolina municipalities such as Asheville and Blowing Rock and communities in Tennessee may see a credit downgrade in the wake of Hurricane Helene, S&P Global Ratings said in a report on Thursday.
The company placed the rating of a dozen municipalities on CreditWatch with negative implications. All have investment-grade ratings — the city of Asheville has a AAA mark. The storm unleashed flooding across the US South late last month.
S&P said it wasn’t worried about disruptions to debt payments, but “potential long-term implications could impair credit quality.”
“These include economic disruption from permanent population displacement and impacts to regional tourism, weakened broader regional indicators over time, long-term revenue challenges following potential assessed value declines and lower economic activity, and capital needs for streets and other damaged infrastructure,” S&P said in its report.
Below is the list of municipalities affected:
--With assistance from Songyan Yu.
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