More than 1,000 people have been reported unaccounted for in a devastated North Carolina county where 10 people have already been confirmed dead after Hurricane Helene, officials said Sunday.
Authorities in Buncombe County reported the horrifying toll in an emergency meeting announcing emergency medical shelters and ongoing rescue efforts in areas almost overwhelmed by stormwater.
They also announced a special website to appeal for help finding those unaccounted for — with “more than 1,000 reports so far,” one local official told the live-streamed meeting.
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1,000 people reported unaccounted for in North Carolina county hit hardest by Hurricane Helene
By Published Sep. 29, 2024, 3:08 p.m. ET
More than 1,000 people have been reported unaccounted for in a devastated North Carolina county where 10 people have already been confirmed dead after Hurricane Helene, officials said Sunday.
Authorities in Buncombe County reported the horrifying toll in an emergency meeting announcing emergency medical shelters and ongoing rescue efforts in areas almost overwhelmed by stormwater.
They also announced a special website to appeal for help finding those unaccounted for — with “more than 1,000 reports so far,” one local official told the live-streamed meeting.
“We’re doing the best we can,” Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said of conditions making it almost impossible to reach the stranded due to collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
Many of the unaccounted for are hoped to just be those without electricity and efforts to let loved ones know they are safe, officials said.
However, the county, home to Asheville, already has 10 of the Tar Heel State’s 11 confirmed deaths — a terrible toll expected to soon rise, Gov. Roy Cooper conceded.
“We know there will be more,” he said Sunday.
Emergency response teams have rescued more than 40 people in the Ashville area, including an infant, thanks to a combination of 911 calls and pleas for help on social media, North Carolina Adjutant General Todd Hunt said.
Critical supplies are being airlifted to stranded communities as crews scramble to clear roads and restore communication lines.
As of Sunday afternoon, Helene has killed at least 60 people and left millions without power since the storm slammed into Florida on Thursday.
Katie Pate of Fairfax, Virginia, posted a plea for help on X when she lost contact with her parents outside Asheville, North Carolina. This story, however, has a happy ending.
“My dad called to tell me they were getting the generator set up, then after that, he was a ghost,” said Pate. “I was seeing just a steady stream of deterioration in western North Carolina, but all I could do was sit and wait.”
After 24 hours of silence, Pate finally got them on the phone. She learned storm had knocked out power for most of the county, and where the roads weren’t flooded, they were covered in fallen trees. The couple, both 75, loaded a chainsaw into their pickup truck and cut a path to a nearby inn — the only place in town with cell service.
“People don’t realize that even if you can get someone on the phone, you still can’t get to them. Everywhere is cut off,” Pate said. “You have to have a chainsaw to get anywhere. The asphalt in the roads is crumbling. The bridges are collapsing. It’s like a horror movie.”
In Texas, Jessica Drye Turner begged for someone to rescue her family members stranded on their rooftop in Asheville, surrounded by rising flood waters. “They are watching 18 wheelers and cars floating by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post on Friday.
But in a follow-up message, which became widely circulated on social media on Saturday, Turner said help had not arrived in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her six-year-old nephew. The roof had collapsed and the three drowned.
“I cannot convey in words the sorrow, heartbreak and devastation my sisters and I are going through nor imagine the pain before us,” she wrote.
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