Helene: Death toll 99 as fifth week of recovery progresses
By Alan Wooten
The Center Square
Hurricane Helene has killed 99 people in North Carolina, and as the fifth week of recovery progresses, there remain people unaccounted for or missing.
At least one county, Buncombe where 42 perished, said last week it would reopen the search if new information comes to light for the 10 it cannot confirm. Gov. Roy Cooper, in an update early last week, described the unaccounted for number as an estimate and put it at 26.
The Center Square, since Thursday, has been unsuccessful obtaining a new number from the state Department of Health and Human Services. Three fatalities have been reported since Cooper’s update.
“There are going to be some people that we have lost in this storm that we will never find,” Ryan Cole told The New York Post on Wednesday.
He's Buncombe County assistant director for Emergency Services, and a former fire chief. Buncombe has a population of roughly 269,000, just under 100,000 of them in Asheville about 2,100 feet above sea level.
Helene came ashore in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, dissipated over the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and dropped more than 30 inches of rain in some locations. A solid 2 feet of rain fell in many places, and the terrain created rushing catastrophes not seen since at least the Great Flood of 1916 that was produced by hurricanes arriving just over a week apart, one from the Gulf of Mexico, the other coming ashore in Charleston, S.C.
Cooper, in a 99-page recommendation for $3.9 billion funding by the state Legislature, said damage is estimated at $53 billion. On the occasion of First Lady Jill Biden joining him in Polk County on Friday, his office wrote in a release, "The funding put forward by legislative Republicans this week represents just 1/6 of this recommendation and included no funds for small business grants and other key needs."
In context, the governor has long criticized the Republican majority General Assembly since winning election in 2016 for management of what is known as the Rainy Day Fund. In fact, in campaigning he complained about it, and has since tried to spend it. Twenty-five years ago, Hurricane Floyd – a once in 500 years flood – recovery from lawmakers included an $840 million relief package without enough rainy day funds to pay for it.
As the new century's first decade moved through tough fiscal times, the state's budget deficit when Republicans gained majorities in 2010 was between $800 million and $1.2 billion. This year's surplus of nearly $5 billion – a roughly $6 billion turnaround in less than 15 years – has been tapped twice by the Legislature for nearly $900 million, and its respective leaders say that amount is merely an "installment" as more needs are assessed, and recovery progresses.
North Carolina’s fatality list on Sunday added a 50-year-old man in Henderson County. A release said he died after falling from a tree while cleaning up storm debris.
The storm has claimed lives as young as 4, two 7-year-olds and a 9-year-old, and as old as 89, 90 and 91. Drownings account for 34 deaths, landslides for 23, and blunt force injuries 20. There were three motor vehicle crashes and four motor vehicle drownings.
According to PowerOutage.us at midafternoon, there were 1,812 without power in Yancey County, 1,263 in Macon County, and 102 in Mitchell County. At the height of the storm the last weekend of September, more than 1 million lost power.
According to DriveNC.org, the number of secondary roads with closures was down to 327. The total in the state because of Helene was at 400, inclusive of two interstates, 32 federal highways and 39 state roads.