SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden will survey the devastation in North and South Carolina on Wednesday as rescuers continue their search for anyone still unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene’s deadly remnants caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast.
Many residents in both states were still without running water, cellular service and electricity as floodwaters receded and revealed more of the death and destruction left in Helene’s path. “We have to jump start this recovery process,” Biden said Tuesday, estimating it could cost billions. “People are scared to death.
This is urgent.” Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris in the mountains of western North Carolina on Tuesday looking for more victims. “Communities were wiped off the map,” North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, said at a news conference Tuesday.
Meanwhile, across the border in , a caravan including Gov. Bill Lee that was surveying damage outside the town of Erwin drove by a crew pulling two bodies from the wreckage, a grim reminder that the rescue and recovery operations are still very much ongoing and the death toll — already surpassing 160 — is likely to rise. The storm, which was one of the deadliest in U.
S. history, and cellular service in some towns and cities, leaving many people frustrated, hot and increasingly worried days into the ordeal. Some cooked food on charcoal grills or hiked to high ground in the hopes of finding a signal .
