Hurricane Helene one of deadliest in US history, up-ending election in key swing states
Helene has become the deadliest US hurricane since Katrina, with the death toll surpassing 220 in post-apocalyptic battleground states just weeks before the presidential election.
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More than 220 people are now confirmed dead – with the death toll expected to rise – after Hurricane Helene carved a path of destruction through several US states, making it the second deadliest storm to hit the US mainland in more than half a century.
In an October surprise just weeks before the US presidential election, the fatalities were concentrated in key swing states of North Carolina and Georgia.
Victims of the hurricane raged after it was revealed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “does not have the funds” for the rest of the Atlantic hurricane season — after the agency spent more than $US1.4 billion to address the migrant crisis.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” said Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” he added. “We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what — what is imminent.”
Kamala Harris caused further outrage by announcing just $US750 in immediate assistance to people who had lost their entire homes, livelihoods and, in many cases, loved ones.
The storm flooded towns and cities, made countless roads impassable, knocked out power and water service, and left communities shell-shocked as they grapple with the start of a years-long recovery effort.
While the fatalities spread the south east to states including South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia, more than were in North Carolina.
The unprecedented disaster in the state has been described by post-apocalyptic, in images reminiscent of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina that killed 1,392 people when it hit New Orleans.
Despite hundreds of rescues across six states and an enormous response including thousands of federal personnel and thousands more National Guard members and active-duty troops assisting local responders, the death toll from the sprawling storm is expected to rise.
Many residents are still unaccounted for in a mountainous region known for its pockets of isolation.
“We are continuing to find survivors,” North Carolina’s Buncombe County, the epicentre of the tragedy where more than 70 people are confirmed dead, said in its latest update, adding there are residents still cut off from the outside world due to landslides and destroyed bridges.
In Asheville, a city of about 100,000 at the foot of picturesque mountains, and popular with tourists, thick mud covers streets. Buildings and other structures along riverbanks have been washed away.
Authorities are pursuing their desperate search for survivors in remote areas, while downtown, restaurants and aid groups are providing free food and water. Repair crews are struggling to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers still without electricity.
In the nearby town of Swannanoa, neighbours bound together in misery or despair were looking after one another, cleaning up roads, fixing power lines, distributing gas and sharing meals.
“We’re all sticking together. Everybody’s helping each other,” resident Shelby Holzhauser told AFP.
FAMILIES LOST EVERYTHING
Helene made landfall on Florida’s northern Gulf Coast as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds of 225 kilometres per hour.
Former president Donald Trump, who is running neck-and-neck against Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election, meanwhile lashed out at Washington’s storm response.
“People are dying all over and they’re getting no help from our federal government,” Trump said in a speech in Michigan, suggesting wrongly that the Biden-Harris administration has no federal funds to help storm-battered states “because they spent it all on illegal migrants.”
The Sierra Club said Helene fed off record warm water temperatures in The Gulf of Mexico, supercharging the storm’s power.
“Make no mistake: the unimaginable devastation we’re seeing across the Southeast is the climate crisis in action,” warned executive director Ben Jealous.
EXTENT OF DEVASTATION REVEALED
Survivors of Hurricane Helene are revealing the true extent of the devastation after the wild storm decimated parts of the southeastern United States.
“There were bodies in trees. They were finding bodies under rubble,” said Alyssa Hudson, whose town of Black Mountain in North Carolina was all but destroyed.
Ms Hudson and her partner managed to escape in time, but she told the New York Post she saw videos on social media of her home submerged to the roof as well as later clips posted by neighbours showing the walls gone, floors caved in and shed washed 3km away.
Her colleague, Corbin Weeks, told the newspaper he helped pull one family from a motorhome moments before it disappeared under a river of brown sludge.
“It’s like a f**king living hell that we just can’t wake up from,” Mr Weeks said.
Whole communities were washed away by floodwaters and landslides, cutting victims off from rescue crews as roads were buried or completely washed away.
North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said many communities were “wiped off the map”.
“This is an unprecedented storm,” he told reporters.
“The emotional and physical toll here is indescribable.”
The sheriff’s office in Pinellas County, Florida, published a grim litany of the nine lives lost there so far, almost all of whose bodies were found drowned in their homes.
Some were found still lying in water, while others were buried under debris.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, residents faced power cuts, supply shortages, blocked roads and broken communication lines in often mountainous terrain, with Governor Brian Kemp describing the storm as a “250-mile wide tornado”.
An estimated 600 people are still missing and torrential rain is hampering rescue efforts as search and rescue efforts continue and the massive clean-up gets underway.
– With AFP
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