The Latest: Helene's death toll rises to more than 130 as supplies are rushed to areas in need
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 130.
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 40 killed there.
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Here’s the latest:
State election officials in North Carolina are announcing guidance to voters after Hurricane Helene devastated counties in the western part of the state.
Counties without internet service will receive emergency kits the state Board of Elections is calling “election offices in a box.” They will help local offices register voters and process absentee ballots until service is restored.
Voters in counties that are under a state or federal natural disaster declaration also will be exempted from North Carolina’s voter identification requirements. Those displaced by the storm can request an absentee ballot at their temporary home, although the board acknowledged that mail delivery is suspended at dozens of post offices in the hardest-hit regions.
President Joe Biden said Monday he will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.
Biden said he will travel to Raleigh to get a briefing from state and local officials and take an aerial tour of Asheville.
He announced plans for the travel following an operational briefing on the hurricane response and recovery efforts from federal government officials and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who took an aerial tour of the Asheville area on Monday.
Biden said he plans to visit hurricane-impacted communities in Georgia and Florida “as soon as possible.”
Former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, even as his supporters call for cuts to federal agencies that warn of weather disasters and deliver relief to hard-hit communities.
As president, Trump delayed disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to finance an effort to return undocumented migrants to Mexico. And Project 2025, backed by Trump supporters, would restructure FEMA to limit aid to states and says the National Weather Service, which provides crucial data on hurricanes and other storms, “should be broken up and downsized.”
Trump claimed without evidence Monday that the Biden administration and North Carolina’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
Biden has approved major disaster declarations for Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, allowing survivors to access funds and resources to jumpstart their recovery immediately. FEMA and other federal agencies, along with private businesses and nonprofit and faith-based organizations, are responding to the disaster in at least seven states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Virginia.
Election employees across Georgia have returned to work even as some offices face power outages, limited internet and infrastructure damages.
“It appears that the counties were spared substantial, long term impacts,” said Robert Sinners, the communications director for Georgia’s Secretary of State. “It looks like election offices are able to continue their work preparing for the upcoming election as scheduled.”
Absentee ballots are scheduled to go out on Oct. 7 as planned, Sinners said.
In Lowndes County, which is close to Florida, staff at the local board of elections are working off two computers instead of the usual eight, said election supervisor Deb Cox. The office is also without Wi-Fi and is using adaptors for the working computers.
“We’re fully up and running as of this morning,” said Cox. “It’s just slower than normal because we have less resources.”
Still, Cox said the office is on target to meet their election preparation goals on time. Poll worker training will resume Tuesday, and the office is continuing to send out electronic military ballots.
Even though Augusta is largely without power, four of Richmond county’s 11 election staff who work in person are still sorting through absentee ballot and voter registration applications. The power is on at the office and the internet is working, said Augusta Board of Elections Executive Director Travis Doss.
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Director Patrick Sheehan told reporters Monday that 14 state bridges are closed and five are destroyed due to the fatal flooding in the area.
The death toll in Tennessee remains at three confirmed deaths, but Sheehan said he expects that number to go up as emergency crews continue going through the wreckage.
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 the North Carolina governor on Monday and will remain on the ground in North Carolina until the situation has stabilized, as directed by 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.
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 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."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said 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.
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