In North Carolina, Helene turned neighborhoods into lakes and picked up cars like toys

Communities in the Southeast are struggling with this Great devastation after Helene The hurricane hit the Big Bend region of Florida on Thursday as the strongest hurricane ever recorded and ripped through several states, killing at least 62 people, leaving millions without power and leaving families trapped in floodwaters. In hard-hit North Carolina, days of persistent flooding have turned roads into waterways, leaving many without essential supplies and overwhelmed state resources. Here’s the latest:

• Over 60 dead in 5 states: Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. At least ten people have died in North Carolina, said a statement from Gov. Roy Cooper’s office Saturday evening. Authorities say at least 23 people have died in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County. According to a spokesman for Governor Brian Kemp, at least 17 people have died in Georgia, two of them from a tornado in the Alamo. At least 11 people have died in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. And in Craig County, Virginia, one person died in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday.

• Dozens missing due to communication failure: More than 200 people have been rescued from flooding in North Carolina after Helene wreaked “biblical devastation,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday. Still, more than 60 people were missing in Buncombe County – which includes the hardest-hit city of Asheville – and over 150 search and rescue operations were underway. “This appears to be Hurricane Katrina in Buncombe County,” said County Manager Avril Pinder, adding that county emergency services were overwhelmed. Crews are conducting welfare checks as communications remain down and there has been no cell phone reception in the area for at least “several days,” according to officials. The number of emergency calls is also extremely high: Since Thursday, the district has received over 5,500 emergency calls and more than 130 rapid water rescues have been carried out. East of Buncombe County, over 20 air rescues have been performed in McDowell County since early Saturday morning. The 911 center is also inundated with calls, often involving patients who have “suffered severe trauma and are running out of oxygen or vital medical supplies.” But the emergency response is being hampered by massive landslides, fallen trees, power lines and severely flooded roads.

• Nearly 400 roads closed in North Carolina: According to the state Department of Transportation, about 390 roads and dozens of highways remained closed in western North Carolina Sunday morning after Helene. In Buncombe County, officials urged people to stay off the roads to allow emergency vehicles through and to watch for “ground movement” as the county grapples with landslides. District officials have requested additional funding from the state and federal government. Another issue across the state is access to clean drinking water. Seven water plants in Avery, Burke, Haywood, Jackson, Rutherford, Watauga and Yancey counties are closed, affecting nearly 70,000 homes. A total of 17 waterworks have reported that they have no electricity. There are 50 boil water warnings in effect in western communities.

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• Millions without electricity in the southeast: Helene’s remnants continued to disrupt power across several states in the eastern U.S. on Saturday, leaving about 2.5 million customers in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us.

• “It looks like a bomb went off” in Georgia: Helene “spared no one,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday. The 17 people who died in Georgia included a mother and her 1-month-old twins, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, and a 58-year-old man, according to Kemp. “It looks like a tornado exploded, it looks like a bomb exploded,” Kemp said.

• South Carolina “devastated” by Helene: The National Weather Service Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, said Saturday it was “devastated by the terrible flooding and widespread wind damage caused by Hurricane Helene.” In a Facebook post Saturday evening, the agency called it “the worst event in our office’s history.”

• “Complete annihilation” along the Florida coast: Days after Helene devastated Florida as a Category 4 hurricane Thursday evening, countless residents are displaced, there are boil water notices in several counties and power is out for more than 243,000 customers. “You’re seeing homes being completely destroyed in some cases,” DeSantis said Saturday, noting that Helene hit some of the same communities affected by Hurricanes Idalia and Debby. “A lot has been done to a community in just 14, 15 months,” he said. Cleanup and recovery efforts have begun across the state, including in directly affected Taylor County, where crews have cleared 90% of major roads, the sheriff’s office said Saturday.

• Additional rain expected: Helene developed into a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, but rain is expected to continue across parts of the southern Appalachian region this weekend. Additional totals of half an inch are expected for areas of western North Carolina, including Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Up to 2 inches is possible for parts of Virginia and West Virginia through Monday. “Additional precipitation is not expected to increase ongoing flooding but may result in excessive runoff due to saturated soils,” the weather service said Sunday morning.

“We all really need help here”

Since Helene began flooding the region, she has turned neighborhoods into lakes, lifted cars like toys, snapped trees like branches and left businesses under water. Piles of thick mud and floating debris blocked roads while torrential rains collapsed roads and washed out bridges. Hundreds of people in North Carolina are stuck in homes, hospitals or transportation systems waiting for rescue.

“The priority is to get people out,” North Carolina Gov. Cooper told CNN affiliate Spectrum News. “And bring in supplies.”

But the officials are faced with a big hurdle: There is a barrier: “Everything is flooded. It’s very difficult for them to pinpoint the problems,” Cooper said.

As floodwaters engulfed Asheville, North Carolina, on Friday, residents of an apartment complex watched as the units were submerged in the water.

Stevie Hollander, a 26-year-old who lives on the second floor with his sister and her fiancé, told CNN: “The water almost reached us, but luckily it went under.” Most of the residents of the first floor units left the building , before the water came in, but some moved to units on higher floors to live with other residents, Hollander said.

“We all really need help here. We need water, some kind of electricity, food, gas. Anything.” He said, “We just don’t really know what to do.”

Flooding left Hollander and his family stranded in the apartment. They tried to drive north on Saturday, but road closures made that impossible and they had to return to the apartment. The family only has four water bottles and little non-perishable food, said Hollander.

In Black Mountain, North Carolina, Sofia Grace Kunst struggled with another problem – a landslide.

Kunst, who was there on a week-long trip, was playing the card game Uno with six of her friends in a small room in a dining room. She clearly remembers the time at 9:10 a.m. Friday when mud and debris smashed through a window and poured into the room. Someone shouted, “Landslide!” Everybody run,” so they all did.

“I see this huge wave of mud, trees and rocks coming straight towards us,” Kunst told CNN, estimating it was five to six feet high.

From then on everything happened very quickly.

She ran into the main dining room and saw the wall completely collapse. They fled to the dining room porch, where many of their peers were crying, and Kunst sat in shock, she said.

At this point she realized that she was barefoot and still had her Uno cards in her hand.

The group didn’t know where to go next as there was water flowing on all sides, but they eventually decided to make their way through muddy water to a higher parking lot. After being stranded there for a while, they managed to get to an emergency shelter.

“That’s when it hit most people. Many tears were shed. It didn’t really affect me emotionally, but my body started to react. I started shaking like crazy. I felt like I needed to scream or release energy,” Kunst said.

The deluge “wiped out” businesses in North Carolina ahead of the tourist season.

In Asheville Parish, small businesses lay in ruins just before October, the biggest tourist season of the year.

As day dawned Saturday, business owner Patrick McNamara got his first look at the destruction Helene had left in her wake. McNamara has operated a small milk distribution business in Asheville for 12 years.

“The flood water was four feet above the dock,” McNamara said, “so the entire building was wiped out.”

His business machines were scattered around the warehouse, the milk was spoiled and the floor was covered in inches of mud. McNamara estimates he has thousands of gallons of milk to get rid of.

McNamara was concerned about access to resources and said he may have to consider moving the business to another facility.

As he begins a lengthy cleanup process, McNamara is confident the community can come together despite the devastation and have a successful tourist season.

CNN’s Isabel Rosales, Taylor Galgano, Sara Smart, Conor Powell, Caroll Alvarado, Caroline Jaime, Emma Tucker, Artemis Moshtaghian, Paradise Afshar and Raja Razek contributed to this report.

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