Torrential rains flood North Carolina mountains and create risk of dam failure

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Days of torrential rains in North Carolina culminating with tropical downpours from what was Hurricane Helene have led to officials keeping a close eye on a major dam, the closure of two main interstates in the mountains and flooding everywhere.

More than a foot (30 centimeters) of rain has fallen across much of the region in the past several days, setting the stage for an unfolding disaster as Helene moved through as a tropical storm Friday morning. At least two deaths have been blamed on the storm.

The powerful, fast-moving hurricane came ashore late Thursday along the Florida Panhandle and was on top of the mountains 12 hours later. Winds gusted to 108 mph (174 kph) atop Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River.

All roads in western North Carolina should be considered closed because it is too dangerous to travel, the state Department of Transportation said. Interstate 40 was closed near Old Fort west of Asheville, and Interstate 26 was shut down south of Asheville near Hendersonville.

A mudslide also sent at least one lane of I-40 into the swollen Pigeon River at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, closing the the highway in both directions, transportation officials said.

Crews have conducted hundreds of swift-water rescues.

“The priority now is saving lives,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said, adding that no one should be on the roads unless they were seeking higher ground.

Officials in Rutherford County were watching Lake Lure Dam because water overtopped it.

That caused some erosion on one side of the dam, state Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson Kat Russell said.

The lake, which feeds the Broad River, was created nearly 100 years ago. The dam is listed as 480 feet (146 meters) long and about 120 feet (36.6 meters) high.

The dam is “doing what it’s supposed to do, but the water levels are just too high,” Russell said.

Downstream communities have been made aware of the overtopping but have been told they would have several hours to alert residents about evacuations if needed, Russell said. North Carolina and South Carolina state agencies also have received emergency action plans should conditions worsen.

The lake is famous for being the setting for some scenes in the 1987 film “Dirty Dancing.”

Washed-out roads prevented first responders from making it to some calls, according to Ryan Cole, Buncombe County assistant emergency services director. That included a mudslide that involved four homes and left an undetermined number of people unaccounted for.

“This is the most significant natural disaster that anyone of us has ever seen in western North Carolina,” Cole said.

Downtown Boone saw flooding in areas where officials couldn't recall flooding before. Appalachian State University canceled its Saturday football game with Liberty, blaming the severe impacts of the weather around the region.

At least two people were killed. A tree fell on a home in Charlotte, and bad weather led to a vehicle wreck in Catawba County, authorities said.

In Nash County, four people were critically injured Friday afternoon when a tornado in one of Helene's outer bands damaged more than a dozen buildings in Rocky Mount, authorities said.

Sonny Cardinale of Rocky Mount said he was eating inside the Hing Ta Restaurant with his granddaughter and her friend when the storm touched down.

“I went up to go get my plate and ... everything started spinning, so I ran to them and grabbed everyone I could and we went up under the table,” Cardinale told WTVD-TV. He said he could hear items and debris falling: “We were lucky.” The restaurant was damaged.

Forecasters were comparing it to the benchmark flood of 1916, which killed 80 people, damaged dozens of miles of railroad tracks and isolated Asheville and other mountain cities for days.

Several rivers were above or near record crests, and floodwaters were not expected to recede until at least Monday.

In Biltmore Village, just outside the famous Biltmore mansion, swiftly moving water from the overflowing Swannanoa River reached above the hoods of vehicles. It was a scene emergency officials expected in many other places, as all the rain has to flow downhill to the sea.

“It’s terrible. I don’t know if I will ever see anything like this again,” said Spencer Tate Andrews, who came down to the area to witness the flooding. “Glad I got to see it, but at the same time, it's terrible and its going to affect a lot of people and businesses.”

Associated Press writers Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

Downed tree blocks Mt. Holly Rd, after Hurricane Helen passed the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Charlotte, N.C. (Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/The Charlotte Observer via AP)

Arrowood Mobile Home Park in Steele Creek is flooded after Hurricane Helen passed the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Charlotte, N.C. (Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez/The Charlotte Observer via AP)

McKinley Moore inspects the damage on his home after a tree fell over his bedroom after Hurricane Helen passed the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Charlotte, N.C. (Khadejeh Nikouyeh/The Charlotte Observer via AP)

A gazebo and the stairs that lead to it are flooded and under water after Hurricane Helene passed the area on Lake James, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Julie Cioffoletti looks at her flooded gazebo and steps to her dock in her backyard after Hurricane Helene passed the area on Lake James, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

A downed tree blocks Eastway Drive in Charlotte, N.C., as Hurricane Helene moved across the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Diamond Vances/The Charlotte Observer via AP)

A downed tree is seen on Tuckaseegee Rd after Hurricane Helen passed the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Charlotte, N.C. (Diamond Vances/The Charlotte Observer via AP)

A beach on Lake James is flooded from torrential rain as a result of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

In this photo provided by the City of Rocky Mount, debris and smashed vehicles are scattered across a parking lot near Hing Ta Restaurant after a tornado hit Rocky Mount, N.C., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (City of Rocky Mount via AP)

In this photo provided by the City of Rocky Mount, cars are piled along the side of Hing Ta Restaurant after a tornado hit Rocky Mount, N.C., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (City of Rocky Mount via AP)

Torrential rain from Hurricane Helene has caused lake levels to rise on Lake James, resulting in flooded docks and gazebos, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Bette Boutique employees prepare their store for Hurricane Helene in Historic Biltmore Village in Asheville, N.C. on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Josh Bell/The Asheville Citizen-Times via AP)

Debris litters Hendersonville Road in Historic Biltmore Village in Asheville, N.C. on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Josh Bell/The Asheville Citizen-Times via AP)

A Biltmore Village employee walks the historic village in Asheville, N.C. on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Josh Bell/The Asheville Citizen-Times via AP)

Emergency personnel watch as floodwaters rise, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Asheville, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

DOUGLAS, Ariz. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris arrived Friday in an Arizona border town, where she'll make her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico boundary since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee as she confronts one of her biggest vulnerabilities ahead of the November election.

She will call for further tightening asylum restrictions, breaking from President Joe Biden’s policy on an issue where her rival, former President Donald Trump, has an edge.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have pounded Harris relentlessly over the Biden administration’s record on migration and fault the vice president for spending little time visiting the border during her time in the White House.

Harris will outline her plan to crack down further on asylum claims and keep the restrictions in place longer compared to the executive order that Biden signed this summer, according to a campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Harris had not yet made the announcement. The official briefed reporters aboard Air Force 2 en route to Arizona.

Harris met in Douglas, Arizona, with Mayor Donald Huish, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels and County Supervisor Ann English, along with Sen. Mark Kelly and Attorney General Kris Mayes.

Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump.

In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it.

"The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,” Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign.

After the immigration legislation stalled, the Biden administration announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen.

Harris will also use her trip to remind voters about her work as attorney general of California in confronting crime along the border. During an August rally in Glendale, outside Phoenix, she talked about helping to prosecute drug- and people-smuggling gangs that operated transnationally and at the border.

“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said then.

Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, at 27 the youngest member of Congress and a leading advocate for Harris with young and Hispanic voters, said that in backing stricter enforcement, Harris is trying to “strike a chord” and “she understands that, right now, there is a crisis at the border. It’s a humanitarian crisis.”

“That’s why she’s pushing for more resources at the border so that we have an orderly process, which is really important,” Frost said. “But, the thing is, that’s where Donald Trump stops, is just at enforcement.”

The vice president’s trip to Douglas thrusts the issue of immigration into the brightest spotlight yet less than six weeks before Election Day.

Trump didn’t wait for her to arrive there before pushing back. He pointed Friday to purported data about criminals entering the U.S. illegally in a bid to link Harris to violent crimes committed by migrants. In a scathing diatribe, he said “blood is on her hands.”

“These are hard, tough, vicious criminals that are free to roam in our country,” Trump said at a manufacturing plant in Michigan.

Earlier in the week, he told voters that “when Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero."

The Trump campaign has also countered with its own TV ads deriding the vice president as a failed “border czar.”

“Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here,” said one spot. However, estimates on how many people have entered the country illegally since the start of the Biden administration in 2021 vary widely.

Harris also never held the position of border czar. Instead, her assignment was to tackle the “root causes” of migration from three Central American nations — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — that were responsible for a significant share of border crossers.

The vice president took a long-term approach to an immediate problem, helping persuade multinational corporations and Latin American businesses to invest in the region. That, she argued, would create jobs and give locals more reasons to stay home rather than take the arduous trek north.

Still, Trump has continued to decry an “invasion” of border crossers.

Polls show that most Americans trust him to handle immigration more than they do Harris.

Douglas, where Harris will appear, is an overwhelmingly Democratic border town in GOP-dominated Cochise County, where the Republicans on the board of supervisors are facing criminal charges for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. Trump was in the area last month, using a remote stretch of border wall and a pile of steel beams to draw a contrast between himself and Harris on border security.

The town of 16,000 people has strong ties to its much larger neighbor, Agua Prieta, Mexico, and a busy port of entry that’s slated for a long-sought upgrade. Many locals are as concerned with making legal border crossings more efficient as they are with combatting illegal ones.

Cooper reported from Phoenix.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign event, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Walker, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris smiles next to Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., as she departs for the U.S.-Mexico border from Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris followed by Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., walks after arriving in Douglas, Ariz., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump Tower in New York, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Seth Wenig)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris departs from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, enroute to New York. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump Tower in New York, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Seth Wenig)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks as she meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, at the Vice President's ceremonial office inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)