Helene death toll may rise; 'catastrophic damage' slows power restoration: Updates

ASHEVILLE, N.C. ‒ Rescue crews across western North Carolina searched Friday for scores of missing people following Helene's historic deluge that ravaged the Southeast, killing more than 200 people, swallowing whole towns and leaving thousands without power or drinkable water.

The storm washed out hundreds of roads and damaged bridges across the southern Appalachians, leaving residents in already isolated communities stranded amid widespread power outages and communication blackouts. Federal, state and local authorities across the region pushed further into the mountain suburbs, including those surrounding Asheville, clearing roads as food, water and other aid was airdropped to residents in need.

Meanwhile, citizen-led volunteer groups in the mountains of western North Carolina have supplemented officials' disaster relief operations, delivering aid to stranded communities on-foot and by helicopter and mule trains.

In a Thursday news conference, officials estimated that more than 200 people remain missing in Buncombe County, which encompasses Asheville and many surrounding neighborhoods.

The death toll surpassed the grim milestone of 200 on Thursday, according to a USA TODAY analysis. At least seventy-two fatalities were reported in Buncombe County.

Flyovers and satellite images:North Carolina, Florida before and after Hurricane Helene

Developments:

∎ About 757,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Friday, down from a peak of more than 4.5 million last week, according to a USA TODAY outage tracker.

∎ A program run by Airbnb is offering free, temporary housing to people displaced by Helene in several states, including Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina. To secure temporary housing, Airbnb has asked displaced residents to reach their local 211 contact center, according to a news release.

∎ Mission Hospital in Asheville, the city's largest medial facility, has delivered more than 50 babies and cared for over 1,800 patients since Helene struck North Carolina, said hospital CEO Greg Lowe in a Friday news conference. The hospital still does not have municipal water, but is being supported by a line of water tanker trucks.

∎ Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a trio of executive orders Thursday, relaxing rules for housing and elections and looking to mitigate the effects of a port worker strike as victims of Helene attempt to recover.

Baby storms into the world as Helene ravages North Carolina

Baby Phoenix made an unforgettable debut. It was 1:51 a.m. Sept. 27 and Helene was starting to tear across western North Carolina as Jewelia Crowe, 28, gave birth to her son.

Ten weeks premature, Phoenix weighed just 2 pounds 10 ounces. Crowe told the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, he cried until he settled into her arms.

Just two minutes later, he was taken away and rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. Almost immediately, according to Crowe and her fiancé Samuel Dillard, a transformer exploded outside, and a nurse let out what Dillard called "a God-awful scream."

“You could see the whole NICU light up,” he said.

But Phoenix was safe. The generators inside Asheville’s Mission Hospital had kicked in. The power stayed on, and despite the unfolding disaster and the immense pressure it put on the hospital and its staff in the days that followed, Phoenix has thrived.

Read the full story here:Baby storms into the world as Helene rips Western North Carolina

‒ Jacob Biba, Asheville Citizen Times

Helene's wrath renders most homes in North Carolina town uninhabitable

Beacon Village was built in the the 1920s for workers employed by the now-defunct Beacon Blanket Company, once one the largest blanket manufacturers in the world.

Before Helene, 77 bungalows still dotted town east of Asheville. After the storm, only 11 are habitable.

On Thursday, homes and cars were caked with mud as people cleared pathways to their homes to salvage what was left.

Derek Hughes, a longtime resident, said his neighbors used canoes and kayaks to rescue people. In one home, a hole could be seen in the roof where rescuers punched through to save people stuck in the attic. “Water was coming in both directions,” Hughes said. “It hit us like a freight train and then it was gone.”

Joi McPherson, who was clearing mud-covered belongings from her home on Thursday, said the residents were not able to get any evacuation warnings because they didn’t have cell service. By the time they received some warning, it was too late. 

“It started at 7 (a.m. Friday) and by 11 we were afraid we were gonna die,” she said.

– Kelly Puente, USA TODAY NETWORK

'Catastrophic damage' hinders utility repairs in NC

Parts of western North Carolina ravaged by Helene will need to wait longer for power restoration as the immense damage has hampered crews working in the mountainous region, officials said.

Duke Energy crews have repaired 1.2 million outages in North Carolina since the storm struck the state late last week, said Bill Norton, a spokesperson for the utility company. As of Thursday, 170,000 homes and businesses in the North Carolina mountain region remain without power, including 78,000 in Buncombe County.

About 105,000 customers without power live in areas where Helene inflicted “catastrophic damage,” Norton said, adding that it will take more time to get power restored in communities where grid infrastructure was washed away and roads collapsed.

Norton added that heavy damage to transmission infrastructure is causing restoration delays. A substation that serves the leafy Asheville enclave of Biltmore Village, for example, was almost completely submerged in floodwater. “That substation alone is going to take 3-4 months to repair,” he said. In the meantime, the company brought in a 200,000 pound mobile substation from Garner, North Carolina, to power homes and businesses in the area.

“This has been a storm like we have never seen in our history," Norton said.

Vice President Harris to travel to North Carolina

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday will travel to North Carolina to areas damaged by Helene and receive an on-the-ground briefing about the recovery efforts.

Harris – who visited Augusta, Georgia, earlier in the week – is expected to provide updates on federal actions being taken to support emergency response and recovery efforts in North Carolina and other southeastern states.

President Joe Biden visited North and South Carolina on Wednesday and toured sites impacted by the storm in Florida and Georgia on Thursday.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday visited the Georgia city of Valdosta.

North Carolina and Georgia are both key battleground states in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

NC hospital director describes hectic, heroic work for Helene victims

Dr. Matt Riester and his wife were about to head out of town to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary when Helene's record-setting rains began to wallop Asheville. Flood waters were raging and Riester's house went dark. The medical director of the emergency department at Asheville's Mission Hospital scrapped his plans and rushed to work, maneuvering past uprooted trees and downed power lines.

When he walked into the hospital, it was a hectic sight. Patients poured in through the emergency room entrance, some with make-shift bandages and slings. One person had caution tape wrapped around an injury as a tourniquet. The hospital, which treats 275 patients on a typical day, attended to 600 and many of them were very ill, the doctor said.

For days, the hospital has remained filled with patients as staff and volunteers work dayslong shifts, taking to mats and air mattresses for a few hours of sleep.

"A lot of the emergency room staff, nurses, the doctors, respiratory therapists and techs, everybody, we're all in the same boat," Riester said. "We all have families. We all have houses. Many people had damage to their houses and a lot of people who were here when it initially hit, they didn't leave the hospital for days.

More:Hospital director describes frenzy as Helene victims poured into ER

– Beth Warren and Jacob Biba, Asheville Citizen Times

Dayslong search stretches on after 'wall of water' tore a couple apart

Five days after Tropical Storm Helene ravaged Western North Carolina, Anthony Vanoy sat along Buck Creek in rural McDowell County and watched as a search and rescue team combed through a towering pile of debris searching for his friend, Julie le Roux.

Before the search and rescue team arrived, Vanoy and a friend spent hours searching for le Roux themselves. Found among the debris, Vanoy said, was one of le Roux's paintings – it was of flowers.

On the morning of Sept. 27, a “wall of water and rocks and tree debris” barreled through a neighbor’s home where le Roux and her fiancé John Norwood were sheltering. The couple was swept downstream, where Norwood was found pinned among debris, nearly a four-minute walk from his home.

“I crawled around screaming, looking for her, and I just couldn’t find her,” Norwood told ABC News earlier this week. As of Wednesday, le Roux still hadn't been found.

Vanoy and Norwood are among hundreds of people searching for loved ones in the aftermath of Helene. Earlier in the week, officials said they've received some 600 missing person reports – a number that's since come down as rescue teams push further into isolated communities and communications are restored.

Read the full story here:A 'wall of water' tore a couple apart. Their friend is aiding in the search.

– Jacob Biba, Asheville Citizen Times

Inside the race to alert residents ahead of Helene

As Helene gathered strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, officials with the National Weather Service and authorities in western North Carolina tracked the storm's path and intensity.

The situation looked so dire that by Wednesday, Sept. 26, officials in Buncombe County declared a local state of emergency for low-lying areas. While urgent warnings were posed on the county's Facebook page, no evacuations were ordered. Meanwhile, the nearby National Weather Service office held daily conferences with local officials, warning of the flood danger posed by the storm.

On Sept. 26, Buncombe County officials held a virtual news conference, warning residents of the forecast of “catastrophic” and “historic” flooding and suggested, for the first time, that residents in flood-prone areas should evacuate. “We cannot stress enough the seriousness of this situation,” County manager Avril Pinder said. “If you live in a flood prone area … you should take action now – right now.”

On the morning of Friday, Sept. 27, as reports of flooding were becoming widespread, Buncombe County issued a mandatory evacuation order that beeped into phones via the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, or IPAWS, FEMA’s system for local emergencies.

But at that point, it was too late to get out, said Clay Chaney, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Forecast Office in Greer, South Carolina. “By the time you get a flash flood emergency, it’s way too late to evacuate,” he said. “At that point, your only option is to go to higher ground.”

Read the full story here:Inside the race to alert residents of Helene's wrath

– Rick Jervis, Chris Kenning and Daniel Dassow, USA TODAY

Contributing: Joey Garrison, USA TODAY; Reuters