More than 160 fatalities have been attributed to Hurricane Helene, marking it as one of the deadliest storms to strike the U.S. in recent history.
The storm has left hundreds missing after devastating southeastern states with floods, community destruction, and power outages. Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing, with aid being delivered through airdrops and mules. The federal government has indicated that the recovery process could span years.
President Joe Biden is set to visit the severely impacted North Carolina on Wednesday, while Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to neighboring Georgia. Both states are critical swing states in the upcoming November presidential election, and the storm’s aftermath has already sparked political discussions, especially after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump visited Georgia earlier in the week.
Hurricane Helene made landfall on Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane, the strongest storm on record to hit Florida’s Big Bend, before moving through adjacent states and weakening to a tropical storm.
The storm brought an unusual scale of rain and lingered longer than typical storms, exacerbated by already saturated ground from prior rainfall.
According to CBS News, 162 deaths have been reported across six states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia.
The death toll has surpassed that of Hurricane Ian, which claimed at least 156 lives in September 2022.
Nearly half of the fatalities from Helene occurred in North Carolina, where some areas experienced six months’ worth of rain. The mountainous regions suffered particularly severe flooding, washing away homes and bridges.
An emergency official in Buncombe County, which includes the heavily affected city of Asheville, described the situation as “biblical devastation.”
A volunteer involved in relief efforts shared the story of someone who had previously lost everything during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, only to face another disaster nearly two decades later. “She has no drinking water. No gasoline. The food in her fridge has rotted,” the volunteer lamented.
The extreme weather has forced the closure of mines in Spruce Pine, known as the world’s largest source of high-purity quartz.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that rebuilding efforts may take years, and Biden has authorized disaster declarations in several states to allow survivors to apply for federal assistance.
On Monday, Biden noted reports of up to 600 people being unaccounted for, expressing hope that they were alive despite challenges in communication due to the lack of cell service.
As of Wednesday morning, over a million residents in the affected states were still without power, according to monitoring site Poweroutage.us.
Early analyses suggest that human-induced climate change significantly contributed to the extreme rainfall.
Record flood levels were reported in at least seven locations across North Carolina and Tennessee, with some areas in western North Carolina breaking records that had stood since the “Great Flood” of July 1916.
The Atlantic hurricane season remains active until the end of November, with above-average sea temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean raising concerns about the potential for more powerful storms to develop.
