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As Hurricane Helene continued to race more than 500 miles up the East Coast over the weekend, bringing severe flooding and high winds with it, the storm’s death toll surpassed 100, and communities faced a challenging recovery ahead.
Some of the areas worst hit with destruction were in more remote western North Carolina mountain towns, like Asheville, where more than 40 people died, CNN reported. Flooding and mudslides in the area wiped out roads, cell and internet service, and access to water, as water treatment facilities were also damaged.
Small towns like Chimney Rock and Swannanoa were pummeled by the storm, local news coverage shows, inundated by flooding, mudslides and downed trees, leaving them nearly unrecognizable. Helicopters dropped food and supplies into the hard-to-access communities on Sunday and Monday.
At least 25 individuals died in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, four in Tennessee and two in Virginia. Hundreds are still missing and may be trapped in harder-to-access areas or unable to communicate with family or friends as a result of cell and internet outages. More than 2 million households were still without power as of Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
Local and federal officials, as well as the National Guard, have been working to deliver supplies to areas in need, as well as work quickly to repair what infrastructure they could. Rescue teams also searched for individuals who might have been trapped or swept away by flood waters.
“This is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response,” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said during a news briefing on Sunday afternoon.
Michelle Ranieri, treasurer of the Hendersonville Board of Realtors (HBOR) and an agent with Southern Homes of the Carolinas, told Inman that cell and internet access was few and far between, and that any open store where goods were still accessible in the town about 25 miles south of Asheville faced lengthy lines.
Michelle Ranieri | HBOR
“The gas lines are extremely long and there are only a few gas stations that have power in order to provide gas,” Ranieri said. “We have absolutely no water, we have no power, we have no internet. There are some small areas that have some of these things, but we have no water.”
During remarks given at the White House on Monday regarding the storm, President Biden said he may need to ask Congress to return early from its preelection recess in order to pass disaster relief funds to support recovery efforts. He did not specify how much he would request, adding “no decision has been made yet.”
The President said he plans to go to North Carolina around Wednesday or Thursday, but wanted to wait until a visit would not hinder recovery or rescue efforts.
“Homes and businesses have washed away in an instant,” President Biden said. “I want them to know we’re not leaving until the job is done. I’m committed to traveling in impacted areas as soon as possible, but I’ve been told that it’d be disruptive if I did it right now. We will not do that at the risk of diverting or delaying any, any of the response assets needed to deal with this crisis. My first responsibility is to get all the help needed to those impacted areas.”
@abc11_eyewitnessnews Asheville house floats away #helene #hurricane #tropicalstorm #ncwx #asheville #wnc ♬ original sound – ABC11
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 200 roads, including Interstate 40, were closed due to flooding. Downtown Asheville and the Biltmore Village sustained severe damage from flooding, with water in the historic village that used to house George Vanderbilt’s employees rising as high as 15 feet at one point, according to residents, WRAL News reported.
“A lot of the infrastructure, the River Arts District in downtown Asheville, is completely, completely devastated and gone,” Ranieri said.
Ranieri said that Hendersonville’s local ACE Hardware had been looted on Monday morning, as people were becoming more desperate for supplies. The biggest barrier to getting around the town was large trees that had fallen down in some areas, which Ranieri said some private citizens were working with their own chainsaws to try and remove from roads. “They are doing their best to at least make things passable,” she said.
One of Ranieri’s clients was scheduled to come into town to visit a property they’re under contract on over the weekend, but that visit was canceled. The home sustained some felled trees on the property that fortunately missed the house, but she said the clients want to have a structural evaluation done on the home now, following all of the flooding in the area, to make sure they want to proceed with the purchase.
“My clients that were coming here were moving from a hurricane-prone area to get away from this type of weather,” Ranieri explained. “So we don’t know if people will now not want to move here because they’re concerned.”
Ranieri on Monday was helping to coordinate with her brokerage firm, the Charlotte-based Southern Homes of the Carolinas, to send some big trucks of supplies to Hendersonville this week.
“I was just at a church locally, Biltmore Baptist Church, discussing that they’re distributing water and ice, so we’re making that a distribution site for the trucks that we’re having come up from Charlotte with the supplies that they’re bringing,” she said.
Ranieri added that her neighbor, who happens to be an agent with Keller Williams, had also coordinated with a local lender to bring in supplies to be donated to those in need in their neighborhood.
In the coming days, once board members have been able to make enough of a recovery at their own homes and brokerage offices, Ranieri said the HBOR hopes to open up their Hendersonville office, which remarkably still has power, for other Realtors in the area to work out of.
Homeowners can apply for FEMA disaster assistance at DisasterAssistance.gov, which will prompt applicants to enter personal information, like phone number and address, as well as a list of damages and losses, and any insurance information. The website also includes links to local Red Cross and other shelters, as well as FEMA disaster recovery centers.
Individuals interested in donating to help those recovering from the storm can do so with the following organizations:
- North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund
- North Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
- Florida Disaster Fund
- Send Relief
- Salvation Army
- American Red Cross
- Americares
