A clearer image of the damage the storm inflicted after barrelling through Florida and Georgia emerged throughout Sunday, with Buncombe County appearing to be the hardest hit area.
“We have biblical devastation,” said Ryan Cole, an emergency official in the county, which contains the mountain city of Asheville. “This is the most significant natural disaster that any one of us has ever seen.”
At least 116 people have died nationwide since the hurricane made landfall in Florida on Thursday, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS, and that figure is expected to rise as officials reach more areas.
Helene began as a hurricane – the most powerful on record to hit Florida’s Big Bend, and moved north into Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. The majority of deaths have been confirmed in North and South Carolina where Helene landed as a tropical storm.
On Sunday evening, officials in North Carolina said 30 people had died in Buncombe County alone. Crews across the state are battling power and mobile service outages, downed trees and hundreds of closed roads.
“This storm has brought catastrophic devastation… of historic proportions,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said.
The American Red Cross has opened more than 140 shelters for those in south-eastern states who evacuated their homes. More than 2,000 people are currently using the shelters, the organisation said on Sunday.
In pictures: Hurricane Helene destruction
The damage from the storm is estimated at between $95bn and $110bn (£71bn-£82bn) nationwide. The scale of the destruction will become clearer in the coming days.
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