Asheville, NC, U.S., June 11, 2025 —When Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina on September 27, Asheville City Schools faced a significant transportation challenge. Flooded roads and mudslides made dozens of bus routes unusable, leaving the district in urgent need of a solution before schools reopened on October 28.
Amanda Rigsby, Director of Transportation at Asheville City Schools, was facing a difficult task: re-routing 26 buses with limited resources and a tight timeline. “I’m sitting over here all by myself, trying to figure out how in the world I’m going to get 2,000 children to school on 22 buses and do it in a reasonable time,” Rigsby recalled. “They set me up with a hurricane team, and I was able to take a breath at that point,” Rigsby said. She further added, “They set me up with a hurricane team, and I was able to take a breath at that point. Because of that support, we were able to completely reroute every bus we had within a week.”
BusPlanner quickly stepped in to support the district. Their team presented two options: a large-scale route redesign or a more targeted, bus-by-bus adjustment. Given the circumstances, BusPlanner recommended the second approach to help minimize disruption for families and students.
The team worked in real-time to adjust routes around blocked roads and reassign pickup locations. Within hours, half the routes had been revised. Within days, the district had a fully updated plan in place, allowing transportation to resume smoothly and safely.
This is one of several instances where BusPlanner has supported school districts during emergencies. The cloud-hosted platform allows districts to quickly adapt, even in the face of disruption.
As schools nationwide prepare for more frequent climate-related disruptions, BusPlanner continues to play a key role in supporting transportation resilience and readiness. Contact us to learn more!
For more on how Asheville City Schools navigated post-storm recovery with BusPlanner, click here to read the article by School Bus Fleet.
