President Biden said he would visit the devastated region. The death toll has risen to more than 110 people across six states, and many remain unaccounted for in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Rescuers fought their way along washed-out roads and through mud-filled ravines on Monday to deliver food, water and emergency supplies across the mountains of southern Appalachia. Officials said that hundreds of residents remain missing in the remote communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
President Biden promised long-term aid and said he would visit the region, possibly later this week, as the death toll from the storm rose to at least 111 across six states. Almost a third of those killed were in the county surrounding Asheville, N.C.
“There are reports of up to 600 people unaccounted for because they can’t be contacted,” Mr. Biden said from the White House. “God willing, they’re alive.”
Though the hurricane made landfall in northwestern Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 storm, with winds of 140 miles per hour, the damage has spread far and wide. Powerful winds and flash flooding leveled communities far from any coastline.
The damage in western North Carolina — where Gov. Roy Cooper said the death toll would most likely continue to rise — and eastern Tennessee has been especially dire. Neighborhoods and small towns across the region have been utterly destroyed by floodwaters and landslides, and Asheville’s drinking water system was severely damaged.
Officials have been working to truck in drinkable water to the city of about 94,000 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Monday. But the lack of cellphone communication, along with widespread power outages and blocked roads, have left officials unsure of the extent of the damage in many hard-to-reach spots.
