Supplies and first responders rushed to North Carolina as Florida recovers from Helen’s damage

PERRY, Fla. (AP) — Authorities raced Sunday to airlift supplies and restore communications and roads to flooded Asheville, North Carolina, as residents of Florida’s storm-battered coast gathered for religious services amid the rubble of Hurricane Helene.

Massive rains from the mighty Helen left people stranded, homeless and awaiting relief across the southeastern United States. Cleanup continued Sunday after a storm that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction in southeastern states and left millions without power.

As the sun rose over Florida’s Big Bend on the Sunday after Hurricane Helene hit the region, many places of worship were still dealing with power outages, damaged roofs and debris from the hurricane – and knowing that many of their followers were suffering another blow following a devastating hurricane. storm.

More than 1,000 miles away in Texas, Jessica Drye Turner begged someone to save her family members stranded on their roof in Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by rising floodwaters. “They are monitoring 18-wheelers and passing cars,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post Friday.

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

“I cannot express in words the heartbreak, heartbreak and devastation my sisters and I are going through, nor can I imagine the pain that awaits us,” she wrote.

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane Thursday evening with winds of 140 mph (225 km/h).

From there, it quickly moved to Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday it “looks like a bomb went off” after watching from the air as homes were shattered and highways covered in debris. Weakened, Helen then flooded the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, causing streams and rivers to overflow and straining dams.

Western North Carolina has been isolated due to landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in eastern Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were evacuated by helicopter from the roof of a hospital Friday. And rescues continued the next day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was underwater.

The storm is expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.

This triggered the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was inundated with more than two feet of rain between Tuesday and Saturday. The death toll in Buncombe County is 10, and Sheriff Quintin Miller indicated during a press briefing Sunday morning that it will likely rise. He said authorities struggle to notify families of deaths due to lack of telephone, cellphone and internet.

It was unclear whether the death toll Miller described overlapped with the 10 deaths confirmed by the state.

The state is sending supplies of water and other items to Buncombe County and Asheville, but mudslides on Interstate 40 and other blocked highways are preventing supplies from arriving. The county’s water supplies were across the Swannanoa River, far from where most of Buncombe County’s 270,000 residents live, officials said.

Law enforcement planned to send officers to locations where there was still water, food or gas because of reports of arguments and threats of violence, the sheriff said.

“If you will bear with us and be patient one more day – I hate to say this but I know how desperate the water is in our community – but we are doing everything in our power to get them up the mountain ” said the Buncombe County Executive. » said Avril Pinder.

In Big Bend, Florida, some lost almost everything they owned, emerging from the storm without even a pair of shoes. As sanctuaries remain dark in a county where as of Sunday morning, 97% of patrons were without power, some churches have canceled regular services while others, like Faith Baptist Church in Perry, have opted to worship outdoors .

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

“We have the power. We don’t have electricity,” said parishioner Marie Ruttinger. “Our God has power. That’s for sure.

In Atlanta, 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain fell in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in two days since record-keeping began in 1878.

In Augusta, in eastern Georgia, near the South Carolina border, authorities informed residents Sunday morning that water service would be cut off for 24 to 48 hours in the city and surrounding areas. Richmond County. A press release said trash and debris from the storm “blocked our ability to pump water.” Officials were distributing bottled water at the municipal building and said every household would receive a case.

President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helen’s devastation was “overwhelming” and pledged to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available to those affected. Dozens of utility crews from New England states also headed south to help with the recovery.

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

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

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

Moody’s Analytics said it expects property damage of between $15 billion and $26 billion. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimate of the total damages and economic losses caused by Helene in the United States is between $95 billion and $110 billion.

Evacuations began before the storm hit and continued as lakes overtopped dams, including one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.

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

None of the victims were from Taylor County, where the storm made landfall. It landed near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 30 kilometers northwest of where Hurricane Idalia struck last year with roughly the same ferocity.

Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow such storms to develop, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and developing into powerful cyclones sometimes within hours.

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

Associated Press journalists Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, and Haya Panjwani in Washington contributed. Collins contributed from Columbia, South Carolina.