Helene’s death toll reaches 200

BLACK MOUNTAIN, North Carolina (AP):

Hurricane Helene’s death toll reached 200 on Thursday and could rise higher still, as searchers made their way towards the hardest to reach places in the mountains of western North Carolina where the storm washed out roads and knocked out electricity, water and cellular service.

Officials in Georgia and North Carolina added to their states’ grim tallies, padding an overall count that has already made Helene the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

A week after the storm came ashore in Florida before carving a path of destruction through the Southeast, connections between friends, neighbours and even strangers have provided hope in the worst-affected areas.

While government cargo planes brought food and water to these areas and rescue crews waded through creeks searching for survivors, those who made it through the storm leaned on one another for support.

Sarah Vekasi, who makes and sells pottery out of her Sarah Sunshine Pottery store in Black Mountain, North Carolina, said she’s struggling with the trauma of Hurricane Helene and uncertainty about the future of her business.

“All I can say is that I’m alive. I’m not doing great. I’m not doing good. But I’m extremely grateful to be alive, especially when so many are not,” Vekasi said.

One thing that makes her feel a little better is the fellowship of the daily town meeting at the square.

“It’s incredible being able to meet in person,” said Vekasi, who was cut off by impassible roads for days. More than 150 people gathered for Wednesday’s session as local leaders stood atop a picnic table shouting updates.

Martha Sullivan took careful notes so she could share the information – roads reopened, progress in getting power restored, work on trying to get water flowing again – with others.

Sullivan, who has lived in Black Mountain for 43 years, said her children invited her to come to Charlotte after the storm, but she wants to stay in her community and look after her neighbours.

“I’m going to stay as long as I feel like I’m being useful,” Sullivan said.

In remote mountain areas, helicopters hoisted the stranded to safety while search crews moved toppled trees so they could look door to door for survivors. In some places, homes teetered on hillsides and washed-out riverbanks.

Electricity is being slowly restored, as the number of homes and businesses without power dipped below 1 million for the first time since last weekend, according to poweroutage.us. Most of the outages are in the Carolinas and Georgia, where Helene struck after barrelling over Florida’s Gulf Coast on September 26 as a Category 4 hurricane. Deaths have been reported in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, in addition to the Carolinas.

Robin Wynn lost power at her Asheville home early last Friday and was able to grab a bag of canned goods and water before getting to a shelter, despite water up to her knees.

“I didn’t know where I was going, didn’t know what was going to happen next. But I got out and I’m alive,” Wynn said Wednesday.

Now that she’s back home, her neighbours have been watching out for one another. Plenty of people have come around to make sure everyone has a hot meal and water, she said.

Eric Williamson, who works at First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, normally makes home visits to members who can’t physically get to church. This week, he’s their lifeline, delivering food that meets dietary restrictions and tossing out food that had spoiled.

Beyond checking in on the essentials, he says it’s important to just socialise with folks in a moment like this, to help them know they aren’t alone.

He has a handwritten list of everyone he needs to visit. “They don’t have telephone service. Even if they have a landline, a lot of that isn’t working,” Williamson said. “So we’re bringing them food and water but also just bringing them a smile and a prayer with them, just to give them comfort.”

Volunteers in Asheville gathered Wednesday before going out to help find people who have been unreachable because of phone and internet outages. They took along boxes of drinking water and instructions to return in person with their results.

Even notifying relatives of people who died in the storm has been difficult.

“That has been our challenge, quite honestly, is no cell service, no way to reach out to next of kin,” said Avril Pinder, an official in Buncombe County where at least 61 people have died. “We have a confirmed body count but we don’t have identifications on everyone or next-of-kin notifications.”

Thursday marked the seventh day of search-and-rescue operations, Pinder said, adding the county doesn’t have an official tally of people who are unaccounted for or missing.

“We’re continuing to find people. We know we have pockets of people who are isolated due to landslides and bridges out,” she said. “So they are disconnected but not missing.”

Biden and Harris get a firsthand look

President Joe Biden flew over the devastation in North and South Carolina, getting a firsthand look at the mess left by a storm that now has killed at least 200 people.

Speaking afterwards in Raleigh, North Carolina, Biden praised the Democratic governor of North Carolina and the Republican governor of South Carolina for their responses to the storm, saying that, in the wake of disasters, “we put politics aside”.

“Our job is to help as many people, as we can as quickly as we can and as thoroughly as we can,” he said.

That includes a commitment from the federal government to foot the bill for debris removal and emergency protective measures for six months. The money will address the impacts of landslides and flooding and will cover costs of first responders, search-and-rescue teams, shelters, and mass feeding.

“We’re not leaving until you’re back on your feet completely,” Biden said.