▲ Some of the damage in Black Mountain, North Carolina, after the passage of Helene.Photo Afp
Afp and Ap
La Jornada Newspaper
Friday, October 4, 2024, p. 19
Black Mountain. At least 201 people have died as a result of the hurricane’s ravages Helene in the southeastern United States, half of them in North Carolina, one of the states that were left with towns devastated by the storm, while more than a million homes were still without power supply, it was reported yesterday.
According to the Afp news agency’s count, based on official figures, 201 deaths were confirmed in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia.
More than half of the deaths occurred in North Carolina, a state hit by catastrophic flooding. Helene It is the second deadliest hurricane in the United States since Katrinawhich killed 1,392 people in 2005.
Despite the hundreds of rescues carried out in six states and the enormous response of more than 10,000 federal troops who assist in the work of local response teams, the number of fatalities from the storm is expected to increase, since many Residents of a mountainous region known for its remote areas remain unaccounted for.
We continue looking for survivorsdeclared the spokesperson for Buncombe County, North Carolina, the epicenter of the tragedy, where the death of more than 60 people is confirmed.
Local authorities added that some residents remain isolated, without any type of communication, due to landslides, downed power lines and electronic signals, as well as the destruction of roads and bridges.
Nearly a million customers were still without power yesterday morning, according to the power outage tracker PowerOutage.us.
Most are in the Carolinas, where regional energy provider Duke Energy says important parts of the electrical grid were simply razedhe indicated in the CNN report.
Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families of those who have just experienced this tearing of their heritage and this tragedy.said the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, at a press conference in his state, where he specified that the official death toll increased to 33.
The US president, Joe Biden, made his second consecutive day of visiting the affected states. Yesterday he was in Florida, whose northwest coast was hit by Helene as a category 4 out of 5 hurricane a week ago. Biden took an aerial tour of the coast to further assess the devastation, and then walked among rows of destroyed homes and buildings in Keaton Beach, near where the storm made landfall with powerful winds of 140 miles per hour.
He then moved to Georgia, where Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced that the president approved a request to subsidize an emergency fund for three months.