Nearly 100 people still missing in NC after Hurricane Helene

Floodwaters and debris are shown along the French Broad River in the River Arts District in Asheville, N.C. (Loren Elliott/The New York Times)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — About 100 people remain missing in North Carolina more than two weeks after Hurricane Helene ravaged the western stretch of the state, Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday.

Cooper, speaking at a news conference, cautioned that the latest count, of 92 missing people, could change “as more reports come in and others are resolved.”

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Search and rescue teams are still looking for the missing, and officials said they had so far verified 95 storm-related deaths in North Carolina. The process of reporting and finding missing people was further complicated in the first days of recovery because of widespread communications outages.

Asheville and other communities in the western part of the state are still reeling from the devastation wrought by Helene, with thousands lacking access to power, running water and reliable roads.

The storm, which first made landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida last month as a Category 4 storm, dumped heavy rains as it moved across the Southeast, killing at least 200 people across several states. It devastated the mountainous region between western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, where floodwaters washed away homes and roads and isolated entire communities for days.

Thousands of federal, state and National Guard workers have descended on the region to help with hurricane recovery, and Cooper said some progress has been made. Rattling through the latest statistics, he said there were just under 13,000 reported power outages, compared with 1 million in the immediate aftermath of the storm. About 580 roads remain closed, down from about 1,200.

But the governor acknowledged the enormousness of the challenges ahead, including ensuring that people who lost their homes and belongings to floodwaters are taken care of as cold weather starts to seep into the state. Asheville and other communities still face some difficulty when it comes to the restoration of running water, he said.

Cooper also spent part of the news briefing castigating the spread of misinformation and falsehoods about the storm response, ranging from false claims about the Federal Emergency Management Agency seizing local land to misinformation about the aid available to survivors of the storm.

Disputing false claims that FEMA and government agencies were withholding aid from conservative-leaning communities in North Carolina, Cooper said 77,000 people had been approved under the agency’s individual assistance program and more than $99 million had been paid out.

The swirl of falsehoods has led to threats against FEMA staff members working to distribute aid throughout the region. A man was arrested Saturday after authorities said he threatened federal emergency responders, and FEMA temporarily pulled back some of its workers who were going door to door to provide assistance to people affected by the storm.

Cooper singled out political candidates, including Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican seeking to replace Cooper as governor, for perpetuating false claims about the response. He warned that the falsehoods could dissuade people from applying for FEMA help and undermine faith in government assistance.

“This is happening in the middle of an election where candidates are using people’s misery to sow chaos for their own political objectives, and it’s wrong,” Cooper said. “This is a time where we all need to pull together to help the people of western North Carolina, and it’s disappointing when candidates, knowing full well what they’re doing, are continuing this kind of disinformation filled with lies.”

Robinson has not responded to requests for comment about his claims about the response. After Cooper’s news conference Tuesday, Robinson posted on social media that the governor “refuses to work with anyone that isn’t part” of what Robinson referred to as “his political machine.”

Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator, echoed Cooper’s comments at the news conference.

“Frankly, it’s heartbreaking to see words or acts of hatred toward anyone, let alone federal responders who are here to help people in this critical time,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2024 The New York Times Company

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