Search for Helene survivors ongoing as officials anticipate storm’s death toll to increase | News

The search for survivors continued Tuesday amid the devastation from Hurricane Helene, which has killed at the very least 135 individuals and destroyed properties throughout the Southeast. 

Many individuals additionally stay unaccounted for, particularly in North Carolina, the place a whole lot of roads stay inaccessible and communications have been knocked out. At the White House on Monday night, President Joe Biden informed reporters there have been experiences that 600 individuals had been unaccounted for. 

“God willing they're alive, but there's no way to contact them,” Mr. Biden mentioned.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell mentioned that search and rescue personnel have been deployed to affected space, and efforts are underway to usher in satellite tv for pc communications. CBS News beforehand reported that greater than 3,300 personnel from throughout the federal authorities have been deployed to assist response efforts within the states Helene bore via. The storm is predicted to be one of many costliest in U.S. historical past. 

Hurricane Helene's impression 

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida's Big Bend area on Thursday, with 140 mile per hour winds and 15-foot storm surge in some areas. Parts of the Gulf Coast have been decimated. Officials estimate that 90% of the properties in Keaton Beach, Florida are merely gone, after huge storm surge and robust winds impacted the coastal space.  

“It's total devastation, and very heartbreaking, because we were a family,” mentioned Becky Jarvis, whose husband constructed their dwelling there 40 years in the past. Now, it is in items. “It's very sad.” 

After the storm hit Florida, it blew north via Georgia. Gov. Brian Kemp mentioned Saturday that it “looks like a bomb went off,” with splintered properties and debris-covered highways seen from the air.  

The storm then introduced torrential rain to the Carolinas and Tennessee, straining dams and overflowing waterways. In rural North Carolina, the realm of Busick was recorded as receiving over 31 inches of rain in simply two days. 

“This is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper mentioned at a information convention Sunday.

Cooper added that extra deaths had been anticipated as rescuers attain remoted areas. 

Search and rescue operations ongoing amid devastation  

Criswell mentioned that it stays “very much an active search and rescue mission” in Western North Carolina. 

“We know that there's many communities that are cut off just because of the geography” of the mountains within the area, she mentioned Sunday. 

Emergency Services Assistant Director Ryan Cole mentioned the flooding in Buncombe County, which incorporates town of Asheville, was “biblical.” 

“We've had biblical flooding here and it has been extremely significant,” Cole informed the Citizen-Times. 

County supervisor Avril Pinder informed the native publication that the storm “is looking to be Buncombe County's own Hurricane Katrina.”

In Swannanoa, North Carolina, greater than 380,000 persons are with out energy and the dearth of cellular phone service within the space has left many reduce off from the surface world. During the height of flooding, waters reached as excessive as the rooftops of many properties.  

“This is devastation, devastation, the worst I've ever seen, and I'm 80 years old,” Pat Harris, who has lived within the small city for over six a long time, informed “CBS Mornings” on Tuesday. 

Food, water and different important provides have been delivered to the group by air, since highways and streets are impassable. North Carolina's Department of Transportation mentioned all roads within the western a part of the state ought to be thought-about closed to non-emergency journey.