Helene storm survivors piece lives back together as Biden due to visit
By Bernie Woodall
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, Oct 2 (Reuters) -Survivors of tropical storm Helene struggled to piece their lives back together as U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday planned to survey damage from the storm that killed at least 162 people following its rampage through the Southeast.
Helene came ashore in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday before turning its fury on much of the U.S. Southeast including Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as flash flooding tore through creeks and rivers, destroyed homes, and ripped victims away from their families.
Biden is due to visit North and South Carolina including an aerial tour of Asheville, the seat of North Carolina's Buncombe County, where at least 57 people were killed.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in the middle of a presidential campaign against Republican rival Donald Trump, will travel to Georgia and North Carolina, two of the hardest-hit states that also happen to be among seven key battleground states in this year's election.
Trump visited Georgia on Monday.
The high-profile visits come as federal, state and local officials are bracing for what U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said would be a "multibillion-dollar undertaking" lasting years.
For now, search-and-rescue teams continued to comb through the wreckage and deliver aid to survivors amid washed-out roads, smashed bridges and felled power lines.
In the town of Swannanoa, Jessica Dixon, 40, is searching for her father, who she believes was swept away to his death by the raging torrent in a creek behind their home.
"Dad went to the back to grab my mom's purse where the keys were attached," Dixon said. "Then, all I could hear was Parker (her son) saying, 'Grandpa's gone. Grandpa's gone.' And he was washed away."
In Clyde, North Carolina, Matt Hartwiger evacuated his riverside home at 5:30 a.m. on Friday when the flood sirens wailed. Within hours water from the Pigeon River was up to the second floor.
Hartwiger, his wife, who is six months pregnant, their three young children and pets were among the first to reach the town's shelter in Haywood County. They bounced around motels until journeying to Knoxville, Tennessee, a 65-mile (100-km) trip that with road closures took two days.
Since then, a church group called him to say they were cleaning mud out of his home built in 1900 and piling destroyed furniture outside.
He plans to return.
"I don't know if there'll be work. I don't know if people will have places to live," said Hartinger, a restaurant manager.
Some locations of western North Carolina may have experienced a 5,000-year event, so perfect were conditions to create maximum precipitation, said Tennessee state climatologist Andrew Joyner.
A storm prior to Helene sucked moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and saturated areas like Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Appalachian mountains above hard-hit communities like Swannanoa and Black Mountain. Then Helene approached at the perfect angle to rise over the peak, intensifying rainfall.
"The event was a perfect storm," Joyner said.
Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Asheville, North Carolina; Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, and Jeff Mason in Washington
Editing by Shri Navaratnam
Latest News
Disclaimer: The XM Group entities provide execution-only service and access to our Online Trading Facility, permitting a person to view and/or use the content available on or via the website, is not intended to change or expand on this, nor does it change or expand on this. Such access and use are always subject to: (i) Terms and Conditions; (ii) Risk Warnings; and (iii) Full Disclaimer. Such content is therefore provided as no more than general information. Particularly, please be aware that the contents of our Online Trading Facility are neither a solicitation, nor an offer to enter any transactions on the financial markets. Trading on any financial market involves a significant level of risk to your capital.
All material published on our Online Trading Facility is intended for educational/informational purposes only, and does not contain – nor should it be considered as containing – financial, investment tax or trading advice and recommendations; or a record of our trading prices; or an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instruments; or unsolicited financial promotions to you.
Any third-party content, as well as content prepared by XM, such as: opinions, news, research, analyses, prices and other information or links to third-party sites contained on this website are provided on an “as-is” basis, as general market commentary, and do not constitute investment advice. To the extent that any content is construed as investment research, you must note and accept that the content was not intended to and has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such, it would be considered as marketing communication under the relevant laws and regulations. Please ensure that you have read and understood our Notification on Non-Independent Investment. Research and Risk Warning concerning the foregoing information, which can be accessed here.
