Rescue teams continue the search for survivors in the town of Asheville this Monday, Located in a mountainous area in western North Carolina, one of the most affected by the passage of the Helene system, which has left at least 35 people dead in that area alone.
Although Helene arrived already weakened as a tropical storm in North Carolina, after impacting northwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, The heavy rains that it unleashed left entire neighborhoods destroyed and businesses submerged under water or mud.in addition to at least 289 roads closed to traffic in that southern state.
This Monday, the mayor of Asheville, Esther Manheimer, confirmed that the area is isolated after the fall of power lines, cell phone antennas and the destruction of three important access roads, and, therefore, its residents still cannot Call or text family members and confirm if they are safe.
In an interview with CNN, Manheimer added that it is very difficult to know when power will be restored to the community, which is “in shock” and in need of water, food and other essential items.
Helene leaves a trail of death and destruction
“It’s hard to describe the chaos it is, it really feels like a post-apocalyptic scene on some television show,” acknowledged the councilor of the town, of about 95,000 inhabitants and located in Buncombe County.
For his part, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper visited Asheville today and noted that “the devastation” caused by Helene was “unbelievable”but that “people are working around the clock to provide help and more help is on the way.”
“Something like this has never happened in Western North Carolina,” Cooper said.
More than two hundred residents in North Carolina were rescued by floodsin a state where 38 counties have requested major disaster status and, according to the specialized website PowerOutage, nearly 400,000 users are still without electricity.
At least 47 people have died in North Carolina, and the situation continues to be catastrophic due to the numerous landslides and floods recorded.
Hurricane Helene has claimed the lives of almost 140 people and about 600 people remain missing in six states in the southeastern United States (Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia) where rescuers are struggling today to find hundreds of missing people in areas that are difficult to access. In Tennessee there were Latinos who could not evacuate from a factory.
Four days after its arrival, more than 1.5 million customers in the six affected states remain without power.
The US president, Joe Biden, who has held talks with the governors of those states and announced that he hopes to be able to visit the affected area towards the end of this week, described Helene as “a storm that makes history.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said today that the accumulated rainfall totals in North Carolina, in particular, were “absolutely extreme,” while the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) ) of the US has declared a public health emergency in much of the Southeast warning of threats to the region’s water systems.
Recovery tasks in the southeast of the country are being carried out while a tropical storm Kirk is currently being recorded in the Atlantic basin, which could become a hurricane in a few days in the central Atlantic.
For its part, Storm Joyce was downgraded to a tropical depression and will be a remnant of low pressure in the next 48 hours.
None of them represent a danger to populated areas, according to the most recent forecasts from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States.
With information from EFE
Keep reading:
• Hurricane Helene leaves more than 115 dead and hundreds missing in the US.
• Storm Helene conditions could make it a major hurricane this Thursday
• They search for Hispanics missing in Tennessee after the passage of Hurricane Helene
