A crisis unfolded in Asheville, North Carolina, as officials pledged to get more water, food and other supplies to flood-stricken areas without power and cellular service Monday, days after Hurricane Helene ripped across the U.S. Southeast. The death toll from the storm surpassed 100.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said during a news conference Monday that the death toll in that state had risen from 17 to 25. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed there.
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St. Luke’s Hospital in Columbus, North Carolina, has been operating via generator power for days. Still, the hospital has been receiving patients who were found in the mountains because its helipad is functional, marketing and public relations director Dean Graves said. All elective surgeries have been canceled until further notice, but the 25-bed hospital’s emergency room has been consistently full, he said.
“We’re pretty close to capacity,” Graves said. “But we’re still here and we’re doing the best we can.”
Elective surgeries also were canceled at South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, but there was no disruption in emergency services, said Erika Bennett, the hospital’s public information officer. All but one of the health system’s four hospitals have power again.
“Everybody is just trying to rally,” she said.
Ballad Health, which operates about a dozen hospitals in Tennessee, announced that elective surgeries would resume at capable facilities starting Monday. However, all services except emergency remain suspended at their Greeneville hospital in east Tennessee. Two more of the health system’s facilities — Laughlin Healthcare Center and Unicoi County Hospital, where staff and patients were rescued from the hospital roof Friday due to flooding — remain closed until further notice.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was surveying damage with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday and will remain on the ground in North Carolina until the situation has stabilized, as directed by President Biden, according to a FEMA news release.
Ten federal search and rescue teams were on the ground and another nine teams were on their way, for a total of more than 900 personnel supporting rescue efforts, the release said. One team was supporting the emergency department at an Asheville hospital and a second was heading to a Spruce Pine hospital while 200 federal ambulances were provided to the state.
FEMA provided 40 Starlink satellite systems to help with responder communications and others were being shipped to help restore communications infrastructure. One Starlink will be deployed per county Emergency Operations Center to assist with communications and continuity of government.
Two incident management assessment teams were working with the state to facilitate requests for assistance and additional personnel were arriving.
FEMA deployed 25 trailer-loads of meals and 60 trailers-loads of water to North Carolina and a C-17 cargo plane full of food, water and other commodities arrived in Asheville with a daily flow of commodities established via air bridge. Another 18 helicopters were on standby to help deliver additional commodities.
There were 29 shelters open with more than 1,000 occupants, FEMA said.
The pipeline carrying jet fuel to Orlando International Airport is expected to be returned to service later today, according to Vicky Oddi, spokesperson for pipeline operator Kinder Morgan.
The pipeline is currently not operating as a result of flooding from Hurricane Helene, she said. The Central Florida Pipeline is the sole source of pipeline-provided jet fuel to Orlando International Airport.
The airport has a reserve supply of approximately 10 days of jet fuel, according to the Port of Tampa. Kinder Morgan is working with its customers on any potential effects, Oddi said.
Columbia, South Carolina, Mayor Daniel Rickenmann warned residents Monday not to spread rumors about the city’s infrastructure.
“I ask our public, please verify the information before you share it,” Rickenmann said. “There are a lot of rumors going around about our drinking water and all types of things that are creating panic, where people don’t need panic. People are already suffering. They haven’t had power in several days. We’re working together to resolve that. But please do not spread rumors. Please do not spread information that you have not verified. You’re doing more harm than good.”
A pipeline that supplies jet fuel to Orlando International Airport is currently down as a result of Hurricane Helene and is expected to be back up and running this afternoon.
The airport has a reserve supply of approximately 10 days of jet fuel, according to the Port of Tampa. Operated by Kinder Morgan, the Central Florida Pipeline is the sole source of pipeline-provided jet fuel to the airport. Kinder Morgan and the airport didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
In Georgia, 11 counties either had 911 outages or were operating with state support, state Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency Director Chris Stallings said Monday. That includes rural Emanuel County, where officials handed out an alternate phone number for people to report emergencies.
Stallings said 328 Verizon cell tower sites and 258 AT&T sites weren’t fully operational, while cell service provider T-Mobile was also reporting a significant number of outages.
U.S. Rep. Rick Allen said communication outages meant people were having trouble finding out where to go for water and food.
“The biggest problem we’ve had again is knowing where these sites are, knowing where there’s water and food, because communications are down, because we don’t have internet,” Allen said.
Local officials and community leaders meeting with Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock listed the restoration of cell service as one of their top priorities. But they also said aid wasn't flowing reliably to rural communities, which also need water, electricity and gasoline.
President Joe Biden said Monday that the federal government will be with survivors and others in the nation’s southeast affected by Helene for “as long as it takes.”
Speaking from the White House, Biden said he intends to travel to North Carolina to survey storm damage by Wednesday or Thursday, once his presence would not divert first responders from live-saving search-and-rescue and disaster response missions.
“We will not do that at the risk of diverting or delaying any of the response assets needed to deal with this crisis,” he said. He declined to address former President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Georgia on Monday.
Biden said he expects to have to ask Congress for additional money to cover federal disaster assistance to those who lost their homes and businesses by the “historic” wind, rain and flooding event, but he doesn’t yet know how much will be necessary to cover the damage.
“We know there’s more to do and we’ll continue to surge resources including food, water, communications, and lifesaving equipment,” Biden said. “I’m here to tell every single survivor in these impacted areas that we will be there with you as long as it takes.”
Biden defended his decision to spend the weekend at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, vacation home, rather than at the White House to monitor the storm, telling reporters,
“I was commanding. I was on the phone,” he said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said President Joe Biden called him Sunday, but he couldn’t take the call because he was in a helicopter touring damage in the Big Bend area. But he told reporters Monday that the federal government should focus on North Carolina.
“Florida, we have it handled,” DeSantis said. “We have what we need … Most of the effort should be in western North Carolina right now because you still have active rescues that need to take place.”
DeSantis said he's also sending rescue teams to North Carolina, where many Floridians have second homes.
“We’re going to be bringing people to safety,” he said. “I don’t think they have any major way to get out of those western North Carolina places right now. That’s going to require us doing the air missions.”
DeSantis also touted Florida’s response back home and efforts to restore power and clear roads. He held a news conference in Steinhatchee in front of Roy’s restaurant, which was demolished by storm surge and said the state was issuing emergency permits to help businesses recover.
Officials in western North Carolina’s Buncombe County, where the city of Asheville is located, reported 35 deaths from the storm as of late Monday morning.
“Devastation does not even begin to describe how we feel,” Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said during a news conference.
Meanwhile, overnight shelters have been at capacity, drinkable water has been scarce and misinformation has been a problem, county officials said. There was a “hoax” that a dam was in danger of failing, which prompted unnecessary evacuations of hundreds of people and diverted the attention of first responders.
“Please, please do not do not provide misinformation to our staff because this is delaying our response,” Miller said.
The county plans to distribute food and water at locations that will be announced Monday afternoon, county officials said. And the city of Asheville has partnered with Verizon to establish a temporary satellite cell tower in a parking lot.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene reached at least 107 people in six states on Monday, according an Associated Press tally.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said during a news conference Monday that the death toll in that state had risen from 17 to 25, pushing the overall toll to more than 100 people. More than half of those fatalities have been reported in the Carolinas.
A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed there.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper predicted that the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
More than 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water from Hurricane Helene flooded the Clearwater Marine Aquarium off Florida’s Gulf Coast, causing catastrophic damage, aquarium officials said over the weekend.
Most of the aquarium’s life support systems were lost by the flooding and other vital equipment was damaged by the salt water. Because of the damage, two manatees getting rehabilitation were moved to ZooTampa and sea turtles also being rehabilitated were moved to a nature center in Boca Raton, officials posted on Sunday.
“All other resident animals are safe, and some animals have been moved within the facility to ensure they are secure while we address impacts to their habitats,” the aquarium said in a post.
James Powell, the aquarium’s executive director, said the facility was in most need of an ultra-low temperature, lab-grade freezer. The aquarium is located about 22 miles (35.4) km west of Tampa.
At Mountain Valley Water in West Asheville, people waited in a line for water for more than a block.
Some had milk jugs or in the case of Derek Farmer, three glass gallon sized apple juice containers. The business was selling water — cash only and writing invoices on what looked like an ancient pad — just outside their fenced in lot.
Farmer has lived in Asheville for more than two decades. As a veteran of the 2004 flood, he was ready. But day three without water had him nervous to get more.
Sommervile Johnston has been without power since Friday and water since Saturday is her West Asheville neighborhood.
There have been times she’s felt sorry for herself. Then news trickles in from smaller communities up the mountains. “At least we’re not alone and isolated here,” Johnston said.
People have been checking on neighbors. When one person goes out for supplies, they take orders from several others. The folks that need water from the creek to flush toilets take turns heading down the hill.
“We’re just biking around, checking on each other,(asterisk) Johnston said outside her West Asheville home.
Authorities in the western North Carolina county of Macon are reporting a storm-related death as officials continue to assess the damage from the flooding over the weekend.
“Unfortunately there has been one fatality in Macon County that can be attributed to the storm,” the local sheriff’s said in a statement late Sunday night. “More information will be available at a later date.”
Macon County is southwest of Asheville and borders Georgia. The sheriff’s office statement says the county was experiencing poor cellular coverage, while crews were working to restore power in affected areas. Numerous calls have been coming in from people from outside of the area who want to check in on loved ones.
“Welfare checks will only be conducted that meet certain criteria and not all requests can be met,” the sheriff’s office said. “A significant part of Macon County was unaffected by the storm and the only issues there are lack of a reliable communication system.”
President Joe Biden says he will visit Hurricane Helene-impacted areas this week as long as it does not disrupt rescue and recovery operations.
Biden was briefed again on Sunday evening about the impact of the devastating storm on an enormous swath of the Southeast. In a brief exchange with reporters, he described the impact of the storm as "stunning" and said that the administration is giving states "everything we have" to help with their response to the storm.
Biden planned to speak about the administration’s response efforts in remarks from the White House on Monday.