Helene storm survivors piece lives back together as Biden due to visit
By Bernie Woodall
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, Oct 2 (Reuters) -Survivors of tropical storm Helene struggled to piece their lives back together as U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday planned to survey damage from the storm that killed at least 162 people following its rampage through the Southeast.
Helene came ashore in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday before turning its fury on much of the U.S. Southeast including Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as flash flooding tore through creeks and rivers, destroyed homes, and ripped victims away from their families.
Biden is due to visit North and South Carolina including an aerial tour of Asheville, the seat of North Carolina's Buncombe County, where at least 57 people were killed.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in the middle of a presidential campaign against Republican rival Donald Trump, will travel to Georgia and North Carolina, two of the hardest-hit states that also happen to be among seven key battleground states in this year's election.
Trump visited Georgia on Monday.
The high-profile visits come as federal, state and local officials are bracing for what U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said would be a "multibillion-dollar undertaking" lasting years.
For now, search-and-rescue teams continued to comb through the wreckage and deliver aid to survivors amid washed-out roads, smashed bridges and felled power lines.
In the town of Swannanoa, Jessica Dixon, 40, is searching for her father, who she believes was swept away to his death by the raging torrent in a creek behind their home.
"Dad went to the back to grab my mom's purse where the keys were attached," Dixon said. "Then, all I could hear was Parker (her son) saying, 'Grandpa's gone. Grandpa's gone.' And he was washed away."
In Clyde, North Carolina, Matt Hartwiger evacuated his riverside home at 5:30 a.m. on Friday when the flood sirens wailed. Within hours water from the Pigeon River was up to the second floor.
Hartwiger, his wife, who is six months pregnant, their three young children and pets were among the first to reach the town's shelter in Haywood County. They bounced around motels until journeying to Knoxville, Tennessee, a 65-mile (100-km) trip that with road closures took two days.
Since then, a church group called him to say they were cleaning mud out of his home built in 1900 and piling destroyed furniture outside.
He plans to return.
"I don't know if there'll be work. I don't know if people will have places to live," said Hartinger, a restaurant manager.
Some locations of western North Carolina may have experienced a 5,000-year event, so perfect were conditions to create maximum precipitation, said Tennessee state climatologist Andrew Joyner.
A storm prior to Helene sucked moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and saturated areas like Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Appalachian mountains above hard-hit communities like Swannanoa and Black Mountain. Then Helene approached at the perfect angle to rise over the peak, intensifying rainfall.
"The event was a perfect storm," Joyner said.
Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Asheville, North Carolina; Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, and Jeff Mason in Washington
Editing by Shri Navaratnam
آخر الأخبار
إخلاء المسؤولية: تتيح كيانات XM Group خدمة تنفيذية فقط والدخول إلى منصة تداولنا عبر الإنترنت، مما يسمح للشخص بمشاهدة و/أو استخدام المحتوى المتاح على موقع الويب أو عن طريقه، وهذا المحتوى لا يراد به التغيير أو التوسع عن ذلك. يخضع هذا الدخول والاستخدام دائماً لما يلي: (1) الشروط والأحكام؛ (2) تحذيرات المخاطر؛ (3) إخلاء المسؤولية الكامل. لذلك يُقدم هذا المحتوى على أنه ليس أكثر من معلومات عامة. تحديداً، يرجى الانتباه إلى أن المحتوى المتاح على منصة تداولنا عبر الإنترنت ليس طلباً أو عرضاً لدخول أي معاملات في الأسواق المالية. التداول في أي سوق مالي به مخاطرة عالية برأس مالك.
جميع المواد المنشورة على منصة تداولنا مخصصة للأغراض التعليمية/المعلوماتية فقط ولا تحتوي - ولا ينبغي اعتبار أنها تحتوي - على نصائح أو توصيات مالية أو ضريبية أو تجارية، أو سجلاً لأسعار تداولنا، أو عرضاً أو طلباً لأي معاملة في أي صكوك مالية أو عروض ترويجية مالية لا داعي لها.
أي محتوى تابع للغير بالإضافة إلى المحتوى الذي أعدته XM، مثل الآراء، والأخبار، والأبحاث، والتحليلات والأسعار وغيرها من المعلومات أو روابط مواقع تابعة للغير وواردة في هذا الموقع تُقدم لك "كما هي"، كتعليق عام على السوق ولا تعتبر نصيحة استثمارية. يجب ألا يُفسر أي محتوى على أنه بحث استثماري، وأن تلاحظ وتقبل أن المحتوى غير مُعدٍ وفقاً للمتطلبات القانونية المصممة لتعزيز استقلالية البحث الاستثماري، وبالتالي، فهو بمثابة تواصل تسويقي بموجب القوانين واللوائح ذات الصلة. فضلاً تأكد من أنك قد قرأت وفهمت الإخطار بالبحوث الاستثمارية غير المستقلة والتحذير من مخاطر المعلومات السابقة، والذي يمكنك الاطلاع عليه هنا.
