By Jacey Fortin
Rescuers fought their way along washed-out roads and through mud-filled ravines Monday to deliver food, water and emergency supplies across the mountains of southern Appalachia. Officials said hundreds of residents remain missing in the remote communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
President Joe Biden promised long-term aid and said he would visit the region, possibly later this week, as the death toll from the storm rose to at least 111 across six states. Almost a third of those killed were in the county surrounding Asheville, North Carolina.
“There are reports of up to 600 people unaccounted for because they can’t be contacted,” Biden said from the White House. “God willing, they’re alive.”
Though the hurricane made landfall in northwestern Florida on Thursday evening as a powerful Category 4 storm, with winds of 140 mph, the damage has spread far and wide. Strong winds and flash flooding leveled communities far from any coastline.
The damage in western North Carolina — where Gov. Roy Cooper said the death toll would most likely continue to rise — and eastern Tennessee has been especially dire. Neighborhoods and small towns across the region have been utterly destroyed by floodwaters and landslides, and Asheville’s drinking water system was severely damaged.
Officials have been working to truck in drinkable water to the city of about 94,000 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Monday. But the lack of cellphone communication, along with widespread power outages and blocked roads, have left officials unsure of the extent of the damage in many hard-to-reach spots.
Power and phone service have been problems all across the South. 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 in an update that more than 100 roads had been cleared across North Carolina by Monday morning, but nearly 300 remained impassable, along with more than 100 each in South Carolina and Georgia.
Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia told reporters Monday that 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, where most residents were still without power Monday.
At least 100 people were missing in Tennessee, Patrick C. Sheehan, the director of Tennessee’s emergency management agency, said at a Monday news conference. He expected that number to 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 transported more than 34,000 pounds of drinking water, food, generators and other equipment.
Biden said he would visit the devastated region as soon as he could do so without drawing resources away from relief efforts. Biden told reporters at the White House that federal emergency officials would not leave the region “until the job is done,” and called Helene a “history-making” storm.
Former President Donald Trump made a stop in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, speaking 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.
There were nearly 3,000 people in 78 shelters across five states on Monday morning, according to FEMA. So far, more than 6,300 rescue and aid personnel have been deployed from FEMA, the National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Communications Commission, among others, the agency said.
Biden noted that he had approved emergency declarations in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, as well as disaster declarations for North Carolina, Florida and South Carolina.
“Communities are devastated,” the president said. “Loved ones, waiting, not sure if their loved ones are OK, and they can’t contact them because there’s no cellphone connections. Many more folks displaced, with no idea when they’ll be able to return to their home, if ever — if there’s a home to return to.”
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