'Like a bomb': Hurricane Helene hammers western NC with historic flooding, untold damage and lives lost (2024)

Gov. Roy Cooper has requested a major disaster declaration from President Joe Biden for 38 counties in North Carolina to help residents recover from the massive flooding and countless damage caused by Hurricane Helene.

The extreme weather event has been blamed for at least 52 deaths in states ranging from Florida to North Carolina, where two perished from storm-related incidents.

In his letter Friday night to Biden, Cooper included Forsyth, Yadkin, Surry, Wilkes, Watauga, Alleghany and Ashe counties as part of his request.

“I have determined that this incident is such unusual severity and magnitude that effective recovery is beyond the capabilities of state and affected local governments and that supplementary federal assistance is necessary,” Cooper wrote.

All across the Southeast, the massive deluge has left many stranded and millions without power.

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday packing winds of 140 mph and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks, churning up tornadoes and straining dams.

“It looks like a bomb went off,” said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after surveying the damage from the air.

More than 700,000 customers were without power across North Carolina, including 160,000 in Buncombe County. Interstate 40 was impassible in multiple locations, and a state transportation department map showed that most routes into Asheville and across much of the mountains were snarled.

All told, western North Carolina was essentially cut off because of landslides and flooding.

State officials say roughly 30 swift water teams have conducted more than 100 rescues so far in flooding that hasn’t been this bad in a century.

In fact, there have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday.

And the rescues continued into Saturday in Buncombe County, where part of Asheville is literally under water.

“To say this caught us off-guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.

Among the desperate family members waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, whose sister told her she was going to check on guests at a vacation cabin as the storm began hitting Asheville. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, said she hasn’t been able to reach her since then.

“I think that people are just completely stuck, wherever they are, with no cell service, no electricity,” she said.

The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Meanwhile, the western part of the state is trying to gather itself after the historic flooding. Power. Communication. Lives. It’s all been lost.

That much, at least, is known. What isn’t — yet — is how bad things really are. And that may take days, maybe even weeks, before officials fully have a grasp.

The storm produced widespread flooding Friday in Boone and at Appalachian State University, prompting Watauga County officials to declare a countywide state of emergency.

Appalachian State suspended its operations until 5 p.m. Sunday. The floodwater began to recede on Friday in Boone as the rain slackened, the university said in a statement.

Officials with Rutherford County Emergency Management said Friday night that engineers evaluated the Lake Lure dam and determined that it was no longer at imminent risk of failure. Still, as a precaution, residents who live below the dam were ordered to evacuate to higher ground.

In Asheville, floodwaters pushed by the remnants of Hurricane Helene left North Carolina’s largest mountain city largely cut off Saturday by damaged roads and a lack of power and cellphone service, part of a swath of destruction across southern Appalachia that left an unknown number dead and countless worried relatives unable to reach loved ones.

More than 400 roads remained closed as floodwaters began to recede and reveal the extent of damage. Cooper said that supplies were being airlifted to that part of the state.

Among those rescued from rising waters was nurse Janetta Barfield, whose car was swamped on Friday morning as she left an overnight shift at Asheville’s Mission Hospital. She said she watched a car in front of her drive through standing water and thought it was safe to proceed. But her car stalled, and within minutes water had filled her front seat up to her chest. A nearby police officer helped her to safety.

“It was unbelievable how fast that creek got just in like five minutes,” Barfield said.

Early on Saturday morning, many Ashevillle gas stations were closed because they didn’t have electricity, and the few that were open had hourlong lines wrapped around the block.

The hub of tourism and arts, home to about 94,000 people, was unusually still after floodwaters swamped neighborhoods known for drawing visitors including Biltmore Village and the River Arts District, which is home to numerous galleries, shops and breweries.

There was no cellular service and no timeline for when it would be restored. Residents were also directed to boil their water.

While there have been deaths in the county, Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said Saturday that he wasn’t ready to report specifics, partially because the communication outages hindered efforts to contact next of kin.

“We have had some loss of life,” he said.