Hundreds still missing in mountain towns after ‘history-making’ Helene

GERTON, N.C. — National Guard units swarmed over the North Carolina mountains in helicopters, high-water vehicles and a cargo plane Monday, joining the desperate effort to deliver food, water and emergency supplies to remote mountain communities hit hard by Hurricane Helene.

Officials said hundreds of residents remained missing along washed-out roads and in muddy ravines that couldn’t be reached by vehicle or by phone. “There are reports of up to 600 people unaccounted for because they can’t be contacted,” President Joe Biden said from the White House. “God willing, they’re alive.”

Biden promised long-term aid and told reporters he would visit North Carolina for an official briefing and to survey the damage from the air Wednesday. He said he also planned to visit Florida and Georgia as soon as possible.

The president announced his plans as the death toll from what he described as a “history-making” storm rose to at least 111 across six states. Almost a third of those killed were in the county surrounding Asheville, North Carolina.

Although the hurricane made landfall in northwestern Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 storm, with winds of 140 mph, the damage spread far and wide. Powerful winds and flash flooding leveled communities far from any coastline.

Several storm survivors took shelter with Jim Kempton and Tara Normington in their home in Gerton, North Carolina, about 12 miles from Asheville. The couple live in a narrow gorge where the fast-moving floodwaters set off a landslide, wiping out four nearby houses and trapping their neighbors in debris.

“Ten-ton and 20-ton boulders can be moved by water like pebbles,” Kempton said. He and others used saws, house jacks and pry bars to free their trapped neighbors, several of whom had broken bones and other injuries. They were airlifted out the next day by helicopter.

The damage was especially dire in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, where Gov. Roy Cooper said the death toll would most likely continue to rise. Homes and neighborhoods across the region were reduced to splinters by floodwaters and landslides, and Asheville’s drinking water system was badly damaged.

“The devastation was beyond belief,” Cooper said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “And even when you prepare for something like this — this is something that’s never happened before in western North Carolina.”

The Gilded Age-era Biltmore Estate in Asheville, one of the region’s best-known landmarks and tourist attractions, was closed indefinitely to assess property damage, its owners said, and the nearby Biltmore Village, which originally housed employees of the estate’s builder, George Vanderbilt, was submerged by floodwaters.

Officials were working to truck in drinkable water for Asheville’s 94,000 residents, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. But the lack of cellphone communication in many spots, along with widespread power outages and blocked roads, has left officials unsure of the extent of the damage in hard-to-reach areas.

There were power and phone service outages across the South and beyond. More than 2 million customers were still without electricity by midday Monday from Florida to Ohio, with the most in South Carolina, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.

FEMA said that more than 100 roads had been cleared across North Carolina by Monday morning, but that nearly 300 remained impassable, along with more than 100 each in South Carolina and Georgia.

At least 100 people were missing in Tennessee, Patrick C. Sheehan, the director of Tennessee’s emergency management agency, said at a news conference Monday. He expected that number would grow. At least 11,000 homes were without power, he said, and drinking water was scarce in many places.

“Flood recovery of this sort is a long, long, hard process,” Sheehan added, “especially when we see the level of infrastructure damage that we’ve seen.”

Aviators from the Tennessee National Guard had rescued more than 100 people by Monday afternoon, and had transported more than 34,000 pounds of drinking water, food, generators and other equipment.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters Monday that Hurricane Helene “spared no one” as it ripped across the state. The death toll there had risen to at least 25, he said.

A spate of electricity outages in the state were concentrated around Augusta, a city of about 200,000 people. Most residents there were still without power Monday.

Helene’s rains left some substations underwater in the hardest-hit areas of western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina served by Duke Energy, said Jeff Brooks, a spokesperson for the utility. Damage to equipment in some spots will require workers to completely rebuild parts of the electric grid, he said.

“The force of the water coming through damaged the equipment beyond repair, and in some cases it’s not there anymore,” Brooks said. Still, he said, most customers in the region should have power restored by late Friday: “Progress is being made. It’s slow, but it’s steady.”

Former President Donald Trump made a stop in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday and spoke briefly to supporters and reporters. He thanked local leaders and emergency responders for their work. “We’re here today to stand in complete solidarity with the people of Georgia and with all of those suffering in the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene,” he said.

During a visit to FEMA headquarters in Washington, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent in the 2024 presidential race, called the damage from Helene “heartbreaking” and addressed the storm’s victims: “To all of those who are rightly feeling overwhelmed by the destruction and the loss, our nation is with you,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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