Search continues for Hurricane Helene survivors in North Carolina mountains

North Carolina resumed search and rescue operations on Tuesday, intent on delivering aid and making contact with hundreds of people cut off by washed-out roads and damaged cellphone towers in following Hurricane Helene.

The storm killed more than 100 people across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia, and the death toll is expected to rise once rescue teams reach isolated towns and telecommunications are restored.

"There are a lot of people hurting. When you don't have power, when you don't have cellphone service, when you don't have water, this is a catastrophic situation for you," North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told MSNBC on Monday night. "Some of our communities are completely wiped out."

The state was coordinating 92 search and rescue teams from 20 states and the US government, Cooper said. Most efforts were in the Appalachian Mountains that run through the western part of the state where the storm ripped up roads, leveled trees and tossed homes about.

On Monday emergency workers delivered a million liters of water, 600,000 meals and hundreds of pallets of airlifted supplies, he said.

In North Carolina, some 300 roads were closed and more than 7,000 people have registered for US Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance, officials said on Monday. The National Guard was flying 1,000 tons of food and water to remote areas by plane and helicopter.

Helene was a hurricane when it slammed into the Florida Gulf coast on Thursday, tearing a destructive path through southeastern states for days on end.

More than 1.7 million homes and businesses in six states from Florida to West Virginia remained without power on Tuesday morning, according to the website Poweroutage.us, including about 625,000 in South Carolina and 468,000 in Georgia.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said at least 25 people in his state had died. South Carolina reported at least 29 dead.

CNN put the national death toll at 128, citing state and local officials, including 56 in North Carolina.

Hundreds of people have been reported as missing, a number that is expected to decline as more telecommunications come back on line and emergency workers are able to get into remote areas.

In North Carolina's mountainous Buncombe County, which includes the tourist destination of Asheville, 40 people have died, the county manager told a news briefing.

John Templeton, 46, evacuated with his family from Asheville on Saturday, a familiar exercise after having evacuated Houston during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and performing relief work in 2005 in the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone in Gulfport, Mississippi.

"I'm pretty familiar with disaster zones and this is worse than any I've seen before," he said, speaking from the town of Fairview about 10 miles (16km) southeast of Asheville.

As Templeton left on the only accessible road out of Asheville he passed a convoy of National Guard vehicles and water trucks coming the other way.

"It was a sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew that everybody still there just had no idea what the coming suffering and misery would look like," he said.

US President Joe Biden said he would visit North Carolina on Wednesday and Georgia and Florida soon after. He may also ask Congress to return to Washington for a special session to pass supplemental aid funding. — Reuters