Helene flooding strands hundreds of North Carolina residents as storm’s death toll reaches 95

By Dalia Faheid and Dakin Andone, CNN

(CNN) — The Southeast is grappling with widespread devastation after Helene made landfall Thursday as the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region and tore through multiple states, killing at least 95 people, knocking out power to millions and trapping families in floodwaters. In hard-hit North Carolina, days of unrelenting flooding have turned roads into waterways, left many without basic necessities and strained state resources. Here’s the latest:

• At least 95 dead across 6 states: Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. At least 36 people are dead in North Carolina, according to county and state officials. At least 25 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, authorities said. In Georgia, at least 17 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. In Florida, at least 11 people have died, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. Two people have died in Virginia, officials said Sunday, and four deaths have been reported in Tennessee.

• Scores of missing persons reports filed amid communication outages: Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina – where at least 30 people have died – have received about 600 missing persons reports through an online form, County Manager Avril Pinder said Sunday. Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate encouraged people not to lose hope. Communications being out and loved ones being unreachable “doesn’t necessarily mean the worst has happened,” he told CNN on Sunday, adding people will be reunited once cell phone reception and internet are restored. The state’s telecommunications partners activated disaster roaming on all networks, meaning “any phone on any carrier can access any network to place calls,” state Emergency Management Director William Ray said.

“Although we know we have lost lives, we generally see more people that are missing or unaccounted for because of communication,” Fugate said.

• Hundreds of roads closed in the Carolinas, hampering water delivery: About 300 roads are closed in North Carolina and another 150 are closed in South Carolina, acting Federal Highway Administrator Kristin White of the US Department of Transportation said Sunday. North Carolina officials on Sunday acknowledged those closures have hampered delivery of water supplies to communities in need, like the city of Weaverville in Buncombe County, which is without both power and water, Mayor Patrick Fitzsimmons said.

• Millions without power in Southeast: About 2.1 million power customers are in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us. On Sunday, Michael Callahan, president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in South Carolina, said infrastructure repairs need to precede power restoration efforts. Still, the utility hoped to have most of its customers in that state back up by Friday, he said.

• President to visit disaster areas: President Joe Biden was briefed by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall on recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene and will visit impacted communities from the storm later this week “as soon as it will not disrupt emergency response operations,” the White House said Sunday evening. On Sunday, Biden spoke with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper as well as other officials across North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina. Former President Donald Trump on Sunday sent his condolences to those affected by Helene, which was the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region.

• ‘It looks like a bomb went off’ in Georgia: Helene “spared no one,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday. Among the 17 people who died in Georgia were a mother and her 1-month-old twin boys, a 7-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, and a 58-year-old man, according to Kemp. “It looks like a tornado went off, it looks like a bomb went off,” Kemp said.

• ‘Complete obliteration’ along Florida coast: Days after Helene slammed Florida on Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane, countless residents are displaced, boil water notices are in place in multiple counties and power is out for over 147,000 customers. “You see some just complete obliteration for homes,” DeSantis said Saturday, noting Helene impacted some of the same communities affected by hurricanes Idalia last year and Debby last month.

• Federal government declares public health emergency in NC: North Carolina on Sunday joined Florida and Georgia as states where the federal government has declared a public health emergency. “We are working closely with state and local health authorities, as well as with our partners across the federal government, and stand ready to provide additional public health and medical support,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said. The government has deployed 200 people who are assessing how hospitals, nursing homes and other care facilities were affected, as well as sending medical care task forces. The announcement comes as President Joe Biden has approved federal disaster declarations for Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and, on Sunday, Virginia.

• Additional rain expected: Helene dumped “staggering” amounts of rain, including 12 to 14 inches in South Carolina, 12 to 16 inches in Florida and 12 to 14 inches in Georgia, said Ken Graham, the director of the National Weather Service. The storm became a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, but rainfall is expected to continue this weekend across parts of the southern Appalachian region: Additional totals of half an inch are expected for areas of western North Carolina, including Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Up to 2 inches is possible for portions of Virginia and West Virginia through Monday. “Additional rainfall is not expected to exacerbate ongoing flooding but may lead to excessive runoff due to saturated soils,” the weather service said Sunday morning.

‘We all really need help here’

Since Helene started swamping the region, it’s turned neighborhoods into lakes, lifted cars like toys, snapped trees like twigs and left businesses underwater. Piles of thick mud and floating debris blocked streets as torrential rains collapsed roadways and washed out bridges. It’s left hundreds of people in North Carolina stranded in homes, hospitals or transportation systems, awaiting rescue.

“The priority is getting people out,” North Carolina Gov. Cooper told CNN affiliate Spectrum News. “And getting supplies in.”

But officials face a major hurdle: “Everything is flooded. It is very difficult for them to see exactly what the problems are,” Cooper said.

On Friday, Stevie Hollander watched as floodwaters inundated his Asheville apartment complex, where he lives on the second floor with his sister and her fiancé.

“The water almost reached us but thankfully went down,” he told CNN. Most residents on the first floor left before their units were submerged, while other relocated to stay with residents on higher floors.

“We all really need help here. We need water, power of sorts, food, gas. Anything.” he said, “We just don’t really know what to do.”

Hollander and his family attempted to drive north Saturday, but road closures forced them to return to the apartment. The family only has four water bottles left and little nonperishable food, Hollander said.

In Black Mountain, North Carolina, Sofia Grace Kunst contended with another problem: a landslide she said tore through the window and wall of a dining hall where she was playing Uno with six friends while on a weeklong trip.

It was exactly 9:10 a.m. Friday when mud and debris shattered a window and poured into the room, she said.

“Landslide! Everybody run,” someone yelled.

“I see this giant wave of like mud and trees and rocks just coming towards us,” Kunst told CNN, estimating it was 5 or 6 feet high.

She ran into the main room of the dining hall, only to see the wall completely cave in. The group fled to the porch, where many of her peers were crying. Kunst sat in shock, barefoot.

It was only then she realized she still had her Uno cards in hand.

The group eventually trekked through muddy water, seeking refuge in a parking lot on higher ground. They were stranded there for some time, but eventually reached a shelter.

“That’s when it hit most people. There were a lot of tears,” Kunst said. “For me, it really didn’t hit me emotionally, but my body started reacting. I started shaking like crazy. I felt like I had to, like, scream or let off energy,” Kunst said.

Amid cleanup efforts, a Buncombe County resident told CNN she has no power, running water or cell phone reception.

Clutching firewood in her hands, Meredith Keisler, a school nurse, said: “We’re collecting wood because we have a grill to make fire, to cook food,” she said.

While Keisler says she considers herself lucky with resources at her home, she plans to work at a shelter to help others.

“It’s incredible — the destruction. It’s really sad,” she noted when asked about her surroundings.

In McDowell County, Krista Cortright said her boyfriend’s grandmother had no way of getting out of Black Mountain due to flooding. Cortright told CNN the couple had to get to her since she had limited supplies and she is diabetic.

It typically takes the couple 25 minutes to travel from Marion to the grandmother’s house. On Sunday, due to road closures, it took them 2.5 hours.

“Things are even more devastating in person,” Cortright said. “(Western North Carolina) is going to take a very long time to recover, but I am so grateful that we are here and doing OK. My heart is broken for our people here.”

CNN’s Sarah Dewberry, Rafael Romo, Jade Gordon, Ashley R. Williams, DJ Judd, Sunlen Serfaty, Lauren Mascarenhas, Eric Levenson, Isabel Rosales, Taylor Galgano, Sara Smart, Conor Powell, Caroll Alvarado, Caroline Jaime, Emma Tucker, Artemis Moshtaghian, Paradise Afshar and Raja Razek contributed to this report.

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