At least 213 dead as search-and-rescue efforts continue after Helene

At least 213 people have died in six states as a result of Helene, which first made landfall as a major hurricane about a week ago. An untold number are still unaccounted for as search-and-rescue crews continue to try to reach remote areas devastated by the storm.

Officials have said they expect the number of fatalities to continue to rise, and the complexity of the search for people may keep the understanding of the toll fluid. Officials in Buncombe County reported 72 deaths Thursday afternoon, while North Carolina state officials confirmed 35 additional deaths in 15 other counties. In South Carolina, at least 41 people have died; 33 deaths have been confirmed in Georgia; 19 in Florida; at least 11 in Tennessee; and two in Virginia.

Many people unaccounted for, including those in more isolated communities, may end up being safe, officials continue to stress, but the ongoing issues with spotty cellphone and internet service may be hindering their ability to get in touch.

In a Thursday morning news conference, Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder said officials know there are “pockets of people who are isolated due to landslides and bridges out, so they are disconnected but not missing.”

“Only once our search and rescue ends will we truly know the number of unaccounted for,” Pinder added.

More than 200 people remain missing in the battered county, Sheriff Quentin Miller said during a Thursday afternoon briefing.

In Black Mountain, a Buncombe County town near Asheville, Paul St. Clair set up a Starlink satellite internet dish when he came to check on his wife’s parents on Monday. By Tuesday, it was Black Mountain’s main connection to the outside world.

“I brought it up here, setting it up thinking it would be a couple people,” he said during a break from cleaning his in-laws’ waterlogged basement. “We’ve had 40, 50 people here all day.”

Many told him it was the first time they had been able to let family know they were all right. Some filed insurance claims. One man used internet to pay a crucial medical bill for his father. Others are simply just scrolling.

Black Mountain is just one example of the sprawling communications crisis that is unfolding in communities hit by Helene’s massive flooding and wind storms. Around two-thirds of the cell towers in affected counties were knocked out, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Thousands of people who long ago got rid of their landlines and don’t use AM/FM radios anymore have been cut off from crucial information as they grapple with the terrible impact of the storm.

As of Thursday afternoon, more than 880,000 electric customers were still without power in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, according to poweroutage.us. Swaths of particularly hard-hit areas are also without safe drinking water, with officials unable to give clear timelines for when service might be restored. Aid has continued to pour into beleaguered counties.

About 6,700 National Guard members from 16 states were involved in relief operations as of Thursday, said Maj. Gen. Win Burkett, director of domestic operations and force development for the National Guard Bureau. They were joined by about 1,000 active-duty troops from Fort Liberty, North Carolina, that President Joe Biden had authorized to help.

In North Carolina, about 1,100 Guard members, 400 military vehicles and 26 Guard aircraft were involved, with “significant flight operations” still underway for search and rescue, said Col. Paul Hollenack, a brigade commander. The National Guard there had rescued more than 500 people and 150 pets in a week and delivered more than 1 million pounds of food to afflicted areas.

Some Guard members there were juggling devastation to their own homes while participating in the response. One Guard member who is a student at Appalachian State University “lost everything” and responded by driving east to Durham and volunteering to join the operation, Hollenack said.

National Guard efforts in other states were focused by Thursday more on indirect support, including removing heavy debris from roads to allow linemen and other personnel to reestablish power and communications, including cellphone networks, military officials said.

Col. William Matheny, a brigade commander with the South Carolina National Guard, said that Guard members “literally had to cut themselves out of their own armories” with heavy equipment “just to get roads open so they could make contact with those emergency operations centers and get a picture of what was going on initially.” They have shifted in the last couple of days to widening roads to allow more vehicles.

In Tennessee, National Guard helicopters and boat crews combined to rescue about 80 people from a hospital in eastern Unicoi County that had seen its entire first floor overwhelmed with floodwater on Sunday. Others were plucked from the top of floating debris and trees, said Maj. Hulon Holmes, a pilot.

Meanwhile, locals are also doing what they can to help.

Justin Jenne spent Wednesday riding Happy, his brown and white Tennessee walking horse, through the hollers of western North Carolina, ferrying supplies to those stranded after Helene barreled through the mountainous region about a week ago.

Jenne was part of a caravan of five horses, a mule and their riders – all volunteers – who found about a half-dozen people stuck in their homes.

“There were families who the only way they could get out was to cross a creek,” said Jenne, 47, who runs Classic Horse Auction to the west in Lewisburg, Tenn. “They were in pretty desperate need of supplies.”

He said his group was able to get into an area where two bridges had been washed out by the storm and numerous mountain roads had been all but washed away.

They passed supplies across a flooded creek to an elderly man and his mother who had not been able to leave their home since the storm, he said. Another family said they had crossed a flooded river and hiked eight miles to a neighbor’s home for supplies before returning.

It wasn’t clear how soon the area would be accessible by vehicles, and Jenne said the mounted volunteers had plans to continue bringing supplies in on Thursday.

“These places, they’re just impassable,” Jenne said. “These roads, some of them are just washed out so bad.”

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De Vynck reported from Black Mountain, N.C. Chiu, Rivero and Lamothe reported from Washington. Hennessy-Fiske reported from Houston.