Hurricane Helene death toll at 93 with ‘more to come’

Hurricane Helene’s devastating toll kept climbing on Sunday (Monday AEST) as search and rescue teams counted at least 93 dead.

Debris and a mobile home come to a stop in a tree line in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Old Fort, North Carolina. Picture: Getty Images.

Hurricane Helene’s devastating toll kept climbing on Sunday (Monday AEST) as search and rescue teams, combing through the wreckage of splintered homes and wind-tossed vehicles, counted at least 93 storm-related deaths across five states.

North Carolina’s Buncombe County, which took a brutal blow from the category-four storm, had recorded 30 deaths as of Sunday afternoon. Georgia had at least 25 storm-related deaths, state officials said, the same amount as South Carolina. Florida had 11 and Virginia had two.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said: “Tragically, we know there will be more.”

While the mountain communities of western North Carolina have been hit by powerful storms in the past, some residents said the effects of Helene were worse than they anticipated.

“It’s incomprehensible, the amount of damage,” said Lisa Coffee, 50. While hurricanes have struck the area before, this one was made worse because of recent rains that saturated the ground, leaving nowhere for the water to go. Utility poles had snapped in half. “No one really realised how intense, how life changing this was going to be,” Ms Coffee said.

Federal and state officials rushed to airlift supplies to battered mountain communities in western North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene left behind damaged water systems, washed-out roads and downed power lines.

Many of the region’s highways around Asheville remain closed, which has hindered search and rescue efforts and convoys trying to bring desperately needed water, gas and food to the area. Buncombe County had a back-up emergency water supply, but where it is stored is inaccessible because of flooding rivers, a county official said.

There is no commercial water available in Weaverville, a city official said. Helene damaged the local water plant, which officials are working to bring back online. The city is also without power.

Residents across Buncombe County, which includes Weaverville, Asheville and Black Mountain, remain under water-boil advisories. Many are without power or mobile phone service for the third day since Helene tore its way from Florida into Appalachia.

Buncombe County officials are fielding more than 1000 requests for welfare checks from people who can’t contact loved ones.

Lori Martin, a Michigan resident, said she was still frantically trying to reach or get word from authorities about her parents, who are in their 70s and live in Black Mountain with no neighbours nearby. Ms Martin said they both have health conditions. “We’ve just got to make it through another night and hope that tomorrow we start getting answers.”

Despite the destroyed roads, she and her siblings were considering driving to North Carolina, she said. “If we have to hike down there and hike that damn mountain itself, that’s what we’re going to do.” In Swannanoa, a city of roughly 5000 people in Buncombe County, Helene wiped out entire neighbourhoods.

“There’s no communication, we haven’t heard from anybody about what’s going on,” said Asheville resident Cynthia O’Leary, who moved to the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains about two months ago. Crews have yet to arrive to clear her road, where several elderly neighbours live, she said.

“We’re OK, but we’re stuck here. There’s three big trees blocking the road and downed power lines,” she said.

In nearby Weaverville, residents charged phones and computers at the local Publix supermarket that was able to open because it had its own generators, said Dee Lawrence, a member of the town council. The store sold out of water before he got there.

Most of Weaverville’s roads were blocked by downed trees, some of which are twisted in power lines, he said. Driving in single lanes on local streets is “like a slalom course”, Mr Lawrence said. He and his wife went to nearby Lake Louise to fill water jugs to bring home so they could at least flush their toilets.

“People are managing well, overall,” he said. “It’s good to have a sense of humour.”

Helene, which landed on the Florida Panhandle on Thursday night as a category-four hurricane, left a trail of destruction across the southeastern US.

The storm caused widespread coastal flooding in Florida and dumped torrential rains as it pounded its way into the southern Appalachians.

In western North Carolina, rainfall peaked around 75cm in one mountain area and was above 50cm in other places. Georgia, which has widespread crop damage and took a big hit in Valdosta, got 35cm.

Helene continued to drop rain on North Carolina on Sunday, and three flash flood warnings remained in effect, all related to dams in danger of failing or overflowing. Central Virginia was at moderate risk for flash flooding into early Monday because of Helene’s remnants.

The Wall Street Journal