At least 30 people are dead, and scores more are missing in one county alone in North Carolina as Hurricane Helene unleashed catastrophic flooding across the state.
Throughout Sunday, a clearer picture of the devastation the storm unleashed after barreling through Florida and Georgia began to emerge, with Buncombe County appearing to be the hardest-hit area.
We have biblical devastation,” said Ryan Cole, an emergency official in the county that houses the mountain city of Asheville. “This is the most significant natural disaster that we have ever seen.”
At least 116 people have died nationwide since the hurricane landed in Florida on Thursday, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS, with that figure set to rise as officials extend their reach to more areas.
Helene began as a hurricane, the most powerful to date to strike Florida’s Big Bend, and then churned north into Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee. The vast majority of deaths have been reported thus far in North and South Carolina, where Helene came ashore as a tropical storm.
On Sunday evening, North Carolina officials reported 30 dead in the county of Buncombe alone. Crews state-wide face power and mobile service outages, downed trees, and hundreds of closed roads.
Some residents returned to find their homes destroyed on Sunday. And with some 1,000 people still unaccounted for in Buncombe County, relatives are working to locate family members with limited mobile service.
“This storm has brought catastrophic devastation. Of historic proportions,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said.
The American Red Cross opened more than 140 shelters for those in south-eastern states who evacuated their homes. The organization said on Sunday that more than 2,000 people are currently using the shelters.
