Emergency responders in western North Carolina were racing on Monday to try to reach people who remain unaccounted for three days after Hurricane Helene tore through the southeastern United States, killing more than 100 people across six states, wiping out communications and leaving millions without power.
In mountainous, hard-hit Bumcombe County, which includes the city of Asheville, 35 people have died, the county sheriff said at a news briefing on Monday. The county was set to begin distributing food and water later in the day to residents, after some supplies were airlifted to the region that has been largely isolated by flooded roads and power outages.
“We don’t have water, and we do not have power across most of the county… the roads are still incredibly dangerous,” County Manager Avril Pinder said.
In neighboring Yancey County, the storm snapped century-old trees around the home of Taylor Shelton, 44. It took her husband two days with a chainsaw to cut a passage through the felled trees in their driveway and the nearby road so they could drive themselves and their three children out of the darkened house.
With no cellular phone service, they relied on a neighbor who works as an EMT and had a walkie talkie to help them determine which roads out of the mountains were passable.
“The devastation is unbelievable,” she said in a phone interview.
She has still not been able to reach her husband’s parents, who live in the nearby town of Burnsville, which was also badly hit.
On Monday, they were attempting to drive back home to pick up their dog and two guinea pigs and leave out food for the cat and the chickens. Their car was loaded with coffee, donuts and diapers for their neighbors.
“It looks like ‘War of the Worlds,’ very, very big trees are down everywhere,” she said. “We saw houses that are just washed away.”
Cell service remained out in large swaths from Ohio through the Carolinas and into Florida. Some 2.1 million homes and businesses were without power early on Monday, according to the website Poweroutage.us.
“The lack of communication is concerning,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on Monday in an interview with CNN. “We know that there are people missing, and we know that there’s going to be significant fatalities at the end of this and our prayers and our hearts go out to these families.”
Cooper, who said he had not heard from his son and daughter in 72 hours, added that local officials and rescue workers were performing door-to-door welfare checks in many communities.
In Buncombe, officials said they are conducting checks of 150 “priority” households that include elderly residents or residents with medical problems.
Source: eNCA
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