More than 120 have now been confirmed killed across several states as the south-east US continues recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene’s devastation.
Joe Biden, US president is expected to visit North Carolina, where the western part of the state has been devastated by flooding, on Wednesday. In recent days, the president pledged federal assistance to help with recovery efforts – and has said that his administration is giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm.
“It’s not just a catastrophic storm. It’s a historic, history-making storm,” Biden said on Monday morning. He added that “damage from the hurricane stretches across at least 10 states”.
The US homeland security adviser, Liz Sherwood-Randall, said on Monday that there could be as many as 600 deaths, though the figure has not yet been confirmed. More than 1 million Americans were still without power in the Carolinas and Georgia as of Monday morning.
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Helene made landfall last Thursday night in Florida’s Big Bend region as a category 4 hurricane. Even though it weakened to a tropical storm before moving through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, the storm’s winds, rainfall, storm surge and flooding destroyed entire communities in its path.
On Sunday, North Carolina’s department of public safety said that supplies such as food, water and other needs were arriving in Asheville, a city in Buncombe county that has seen widespread destruction. The state’s national guard was airlifting supplies into counties across western North Carolina, too, officials said.
“This is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response,” Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s governor, said.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Monday that hundreds of roads had been closed across western North Carolina and that shelters were housing more than 1,000 people.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
