Thirty people dead in a single county after hurricane floods North Carolina.
At least 30 people have been confirmed dead and many others remain missing in a single North Carolina county after Hurricane Helene swept through, triggering severe flooding.
By Sunday, the full extent of the storm’s destruction, which first hit Florida and Georgia, became clearer, with Buncombe County, home to the mountain city of Asheville, being the worst affected.
“We are facing biblical devastation,” said Ryan Cole, an emergency official in the county. “This is the most significant natural disaster we’ve ever experienced.”
Nationwide, at least 105 people have died since the hurricane made landfall in Florida on Thursday, according to CBS, and the death toll is expected to rise as more areas are reached by officials.
Helene started as a hurricane, the strongest ever recorded to hit Florida’s Big Bend, before moving north into Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee. Most of the fatalities have been reported in North and South Carolina, where Helene made landfall as a tropical storm.
By Sunday evening, officials in North Carolina reported 30 deaths in Buncombe County alone. Crews throughout the state are dealing with power and mobile service outages, fallen trees, and hundreds of road closures.
Some residents returned on Sunday to find their homes completely destroyed. With around 1,000 people still missing in Buncombe County, families are struggling to locate loved ones due to limited mobile service.
“This storm has caused catastrophic devastation of historic proportions,” said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.
The American Red Cross has set up over 140 shelters for evacuees in the southeastern states, with more than 2,000 people currently using them, according to the organization on Sunday.
