Supplies and emergency workers rushed to North Carolina as Florida surveyed Helene’s damage

PERRY, Fla. — The Southeast grappled Sunday with rising death tolls, a lack of vital supplies in isolated, flood-stricken areas and widespread loss of homes and property as the devastating toll of Hurricane Helene became clear to officials who warned of a long, drawn-out onslaught. difficult to rebuild.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Sunday that the state’s death toll was expected to rise by 11 as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, collapsed infrastructure and widespread flooding.

“We know there will be more deaths,” Cooper said at a news conference, asking residents to avoid traveling on roadways in Western North Carolina, not only to avoid hazards but also to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams dispersed across the area to search for stranded people.

“Many people are cut off because the roads are impassable,” he said. Materials were being flown into the area around Asheville, a city in the mountains of Western North Carolina known for its arts, culture and natural beauty.

Rescue efforts included the rescue of 41 people and an infant during a mission north of Asheville. North Carolina Adjutant General Todd Hunt said teams found people through both 911 calls and messages on social media.

The storm turned life upside down in the Southeast. As authorities rushed to airlift supplies and repair communications and roads in flooded Asheville, residents along the storm-battered Florida coast gathered for church services.

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 140 mph.

From there he quickly moved on to Georgia; “It looks like a bomb went off,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday after seeing shattered homes and highways covered in debris from the air. The weakened Helene then drenched the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending streams and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

More than 60 people were killed. Several million people were without power on Sunday afternoon.

In Texas, Jessica Drye Turner pleaded for someone to rescue family members trapped on their Asheville rooftop surrounded by rising floodwaters. “They are tracking the 18-wheeler and the float car,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post Friday.

But in a follow-up message that spread widely on social media on Saturday, Turner said help did not arrive in time to save both his parents, who are in their 70s, and his 6-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and three people drowned.

“Words cannot describe the sadness, heartbreak, and devastation my sisters and I are experiencing and cannot imagine the pain ahead,” she wrote.

Western North Carolina was isolated by mudslides and flooding that closed Interstate 40 and other roads. There have been hundreds of water rescues; None of this was as dramatic as in East Tennessee’s rural Unicoi County, where dozens of patients and staff were taken by helicopter from the roof of a hospital on Friday.

The storm continued over the Tennessee Valley into Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. It caused the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was hit with more than 6 feet of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.

The state is sending water supplies and other supplies to Buncombe County and Asheville, but mudslides on Interstate 40 and other blocked highways are preventing those supplies from being shipped. The county’s own water supply is on the other side of the Swannanoa River, far from where most of Buncombe County’s 270,000 people live, officials said.

The sheriff said law enforcement is making plans to send officers to locations where there is still water, food or gas due to arguments and threats of violence.

“If you’ll just bear with us and be patient one more day – I hate to say it, but I know how desperate we are for water in our community – but we’re trying as hard as we can to get them up the mountain,” Buncombe County said. Manager Avril Pinder said:

In Florida’s Big Bend, some lost nearly everything they owned and emerged from the storm without even a pair of shoes. With houses of worship still dark in a county where 97% of customers were without power as of Sunday morning, some churches canceled regular services while others, like Faith Baptist Church in Perry, opted to worship outside.

Puddles and tree debris still cover the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. The church urged parishioners to “pray for our community” in a message posted on the congregation’s Facebook page.

“We have the power. We don’t have electricity,” said Marie Ruttinger, a parishioner at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. “Our God is powerful. He absolutely is.”

11.12 inches of rain fell in Atlanta in 48 hours; This was the highest amount of rain the city had seen in two days since records began in 1878.

In Augusta, in eastern Georgia near the South Carolina state line, officials notified residents Sunday morning that water services around the city and Richmond County would be shut off for 24 to 48 hours. Trash and debris from the storm “impeded our ability to pump water,” a news release said. Authorities distributed bottled water at the town hall and said a box would be distributed to each household.

President Biden said Saturday that Helene’s devastation was “enormous” and promised to send aid. It also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina and provided federal funding for affected individuals. Dozens of utility crews from New England states also headed south to help with the recovery.

Federal funding will be critical to rebuilding local communities, Sen. Marco Rubio said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

“There are some coastal areas that are facing their third storm, some in the last 12 months,” Rubio said.

Helene, which killed at least 25 people in South Carolina, was the deadliest tropical cyclone in the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it made landfall just north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths were also reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

Moody’s Analytics said it expected property damage to be between $15 billion and $26 billion. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimate of Helene’s total damage and economic loss in the United States is between $95 billion and $110 billion.

The 11 confirmed deaths in Florida include nine people who drowned in their homes in the mandatory evacuation zone in Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

Climate change has worsened the conditions that cause such storms to grow larger, rapidly intensify in warming waters, and sometimes develop into powerful hurricanes within a few hours.

Helene was the eighth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year due to record-warm ocean temperatures.

Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Patrick Whittle in Portland and Haya Panjwani in Washington, D.C., contributed.

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