North Carolina reels after Hurricane Helene as crews rush to deliver aid

Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina over the weekend, leaving behind a trail of death and devastation. At least 44 people were killed across the state, most in a mountainous county where the storm triggered monstrous flooding, engulfed homes, demolished businesses and cut off power to thousands.

North Carolina emergency crews were racing Monday to deliver water, food and other essential supplies to areas hit hard by Helene. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for and more than 450,000 customers remain without power, according to the website Poweroutage.us. 

“This is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response,” Gov. Roy Cooper said at a news briefing Sunday, adding that some areas were drenched by as much as 29 inches of rainfall.

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At least 35 people were dead in Buncombe County, home of the thriving mountain city of Asheville, according to law enforcement officials. Asheville, a mecca for artists and a popular tourist destination, found itself isolated by the storm’s effect: electricity and cell service cut off; roads and bridges in ruins; cars and trucks submerged.

Mark Goldthwaite, the owner of the Asheville Guitar Bar, said he feared his business was effectively destroyed. “It’s not only months of recovery,” he told NBC affiliate WRAL. “It’s years.”

While people in Asheville reckon with the destruction, others in remote areas have yet to be located as first responders struggle to access areas isolated by washed-out roads. The drop-off in communication has panicked relatives of missing locals pleading for shreds of information.

Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller, describing the storm’s chaotic aftermath as a “historic event,” acknowledged that some officials were blindsided by the sheer intensity of Helene, which also slammed into parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

“I don’t know that we can ever properly prepare for everything. This was new to all of us. This is stretching us in places that we didn’t know,” Miller said. “To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement.”

The storm left many in that area once again picking up the pieces after another devastating hurricane. Far less common is for a weather event like Helene to hit the mountains of Appalachia — an area hours from the coast where residents are unaccustomed to calamitous hurricane-related weather.

Photos and videos from Asheville, home to some 95,000 people, captured harrowing scenes and showed neighborhoods rendered unrecognizable by Helene’s impact.

Homes swept away. Refrigerators and other appliances floating in muck. Restaurants and coffee shops pummeled to pieces. Dazed locals wandering through streets lined with debris. Residents surveying damage as they paddled in kayaks in murky brown floodwaters alongside inundated rooftops.

The historic village of Biltmore, a popular attraction at the entrance to the Biltmore mansion, was plunged underwater. The estate, built during the first Gilded Age, regularly draws throngs of visitors. 

In an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” early Monday, Buncombe County’s director of communications described the shock of returning to her own home the previous evening.

“I went home last night for the first time since the storm hit and I live in Black Mountain, and to say it’s decimated would be an understatement,” Lillian Govus said. “Roads are so impassable … so we’re having to actually fly materials in, take other routes.”

President Joe Biden, calling the effect of the storm “stunning,” pledged to visit the area this week as long as he does not get in the way of recovery and rescue efforts.

“Your nation has your back and the Biden-Harris administration will be there until the job is done,” he said from the White House on Monday. 

Biden added that he may call a special session of Congress to address the hurricane’s devastation, but that “no decisions have been made yet.”

Helene made landfall late Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. The storm, weakened but still fearsome, ripped through Georgia and then doused the Carolinas and Tennessee with heavy rains.

Weather-related deaths totaled more than 100 people across the Southeast, including at least 12 in Florida, at least 17 in Georgia, at least 25 in South Carolina and at least four in Tennessee, according to an NBC News tally based on figures from local officials. 

The approximately 44 people dead in North Carolina represent a third of all fatalities from the storm.

Jessica Drye Turner took to Facebook on Friday, begging for someone to rescue four of her family members stranded on the roof of their home in Asheville.

“They are watching 18-wheelers and cars floating by,” she wrote.

But before help could arrive, the roof collapsed. Turner said in a subsequent Facebook post Saturday that her elderly parents and 6-year-old nephew had drowned.