ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Desperate residents isolated by washed out roads and the lack of power and cellular service in western North Carolina lined up for fresh water Monday, days after Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeastern U.S. and killed more than 100 people.
Government officials and aid groups were working to bring basic supplies by airlift and truck to the hard-hit tourism hub of Asheville and surrounding mountain towns.
At least 120 people in six states were killed as the death toll climbed Monday and a clearer picture emerged of the devastation stretching from Florida’s Gulf Coast to the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. The North Carolina county that includes Asheville reported at least 35 people killed. Georgia's death count was raised Monday from 17 to 25.
North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper, predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
Asheville’s water system was severely damaged, forcing residents to carry buckets to a creek to get water to flush toilets. They carefully watched their steps where a wall of water had ripped away all of the trees and ground, leaving only mud.
Neighbors shared food and water and comforted each other. “That’s the blessing so far in this,” Sommerville Johnston said outside her home, which has been without power since Friday.
She planned on treating the neighborhood to venison stew from her powerless freezer before it goes bad. “Just bring your bowl and spoon,” she said.
Others waited in a line for more than a block at Mountain Valley Water, a water seller, to fill up milk jugs and whatever other containers they could find.
Derek Farmer, who brought three gallon-sized apple juice containers, said he had been prepared for the storm but now was nervous after three days without water. “I just didn’t know how bad it was going to be,” Farmer said.
Officials warned that rebuilding from the widespread loss of homes and property would be lengthy and difficult. The storm upended life throughout the Southeast, where deaths were also reported in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Monday that hundreds of roads were closed across western North Carolina and that shelters were housing more than 1,000 people.
Cooper implored area residents to avoid travel for their own safety and to keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams spread throughout the region in search of stranded people.
One rescue effort involved saving 41 people north of Asheville. The teams found people through 911 calls and social media messages, North Carolina National Guard Adjutant General Todd Hunt said.
Video showed a mass of debris, including overturned pontoon boats and splintered wooden docks, covering the surface of Lake Lure, a picturesque spot tucked between the mountains outside Asheville.
President Joe Biden said Monday that the federal government would be with survivors and others in the nation’s southeast affected by Helene “as long as it takes.” He expects to ask Congress for additional money for disaster assistance and intends to travel to North Carolina later this week when his presence wouldn’t divert from live-saving search-and-rescue missions.
Helene roared ashore late Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane, with 140 mph (225 kph) winds. A weakened Helene quickly moved through Georgia, then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded waterways.
Begging for help and searching for a signal in North Carolina
Several dozen people gathered on high ground in Asheville on Monday, where they found one of the city's hottest commodities — a cell signal — and texted friends and loved ones a simple message: ”I’m OK."
“Is this day three or day four?” Colleen Burnet asked. “It’s all been a blur.”
The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, received more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.
Jessica Drye Turner, in Texas, had begged for someone to rescue her family members stranded on their rooftop in Asheville amid rising floodwaters. “They are watching 18-wheelers and cars floating by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post on Friday.
But in a follow-up message Saturday, Turner said help didn't arrived in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her 6-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and they all drowned.
“I cannot convey in words the sorrow, heartbreak and devastation my sisters and I are going through,” she wrote.
The state was trying to send clean water to Asheville, but mudslides blocking Interstate 40 and other highways was hampering those efforts. Law enforcement was making plans to send officers to places that still had water, food or gas because of reports of arguments and threats of violence, the county sheriff said.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell toured south Georgia on Sunday and planned to be in North Carolina Monday.
“It’s still very much an active search and rescue mission” in western North Carolina, Criswell said. “And we know that there’s many communities that are cut off just because of the geography” of the mountains, where damage to roads and bridges have cut off certain areas.
Destruction from Florida to Virginia
Along Florida's Gulf Coast, several feet of water swamped the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, forcing workers to move two manatees and sea turtles. All of the animals were safe but much of the aquarium’s vital equipment was damaged or destroyed, said James Powell, the aquarium’s executive director.
Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, said the storm “literally spared no one.” Most people in and around Augusta, a city of about 200,000 people near the South Carolina border, were still without power Monday, and Kemp and other officials tried to reassure residents that they felt their misery.
With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone to hit the state since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.
Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes within hours.
Tropical Storm Kirk forms and could become a powerful hurricane
Tropical Storm Kirk formed Monday in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and is expected to become a “large and powerful hurricane” by Tuesday night or Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was located about 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) west of the Cabo Verde Islands with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (70 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, and the storm system was not a threat to land.
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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine, and Payne reported from Perry, Florida. Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, Haya Panjwani in Washington, and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed.
Jeffrey Collins, Kate Payne And Patrick Whittle, The Associated Press
