The Latest: Harris, Trump shift plans after Hurricane Helene's destruction

Hurricane Helene is shifting the presidential candidates’ plans this week.

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is cutting short a campaign visit to Las Vegas to return to Washington for briefings. Republican candidate Donald Trump is heading to Georgia to see the storm’s impact.

Hurricane Helene’s death toll is more than 100 people and rising, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.

In addition to being humanitarian crises, natural disasters can create political tests for elected officials, particularly in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign.

Presidents typically avoid racing toward disaster zones so they don’t interfere with recovery efforts. The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.”

President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak about his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene on Monday morning. He plans to visit areas affected by the storm later this week, with efforts to not disrupt response efforts.

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Vice President Kamala Harris says she’s been clear about her racial identity and background and doesn’t listen to questions about it raised by critics, including her presidential race opponent, Republican Donald Trump.

Asked about criticism about her identity on an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast that was released Monday, Harris responded, “I don’t listen to it.”

“I’m really clear about who I am,” she said. “And if anybody else is not they have to go through their own level of therapy.”

Harris said she’s happy to discuss her identity more fully, but that really doing so would require an hours-long discussion about the role of race in America.

“My mother was very clear. She was raising two Black girls to be two proud Black women,” Harris said. “And it was never a question.”

Vice President Kamala Harris says of the infamous blind date where she met her husband, Doug Emhoff, “I just have a really bossy best friend.”

Set up by especially persuasive friends, Harris told an episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast that was released Monday that Emhoff picked her up for the date in a BMW. He immediately divulged, “I’m a really bad driver,” she recalled.

“I guess he was trying to create a little expectation,” Harris said.

She said the pair then went to Emhoff’s favorite restaurant where people who worked there “were like, ‘Hey Doug.’” She didn’t name the restaurant.

At the beginning of a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, Harris said “we will stand with these communities for as long as it takes to make sure that they are able to recover and rebuild.”

Trump, speaking in Erie, Pa., on Sunday, described the storm as “a big monster hurricane” that had “hit a lot harder than anyone even thought possible.”

He criticized Harris for attending weekend fundraising events in California while the storm hit.

“She ought to be down in the area where she should be,” Trump said.

The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.” She also spoke with Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and she received a briefing from Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell while she was traveling.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A crisis unfolded in western North Carolina as officials rushed to get more water, food and other supplies to flood-stricken areas without power and cellular service Monday, three days after Hurricane Helene ripped across the U.S. Southeast. The death toll from the storm reached the triple digits.

At least 107 people in six states were killed. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed. Georgia's death count was raised Monday from 17 to 25.

North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper, predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.

Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city of Asheville. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder pledged that she would have food and water to the city by Monday.

“We hear you. We need food and we need water,” Pinder said on a Sunday call with reporters. “My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we’ve been working with every single organization that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close.”

Asheville's water system was severely damaged. Residents walked with buckets to a creek to get water to flush toilets, carefully watching their steps where a wall of water three days before ripped away all of the trees and ground, leaving only mud.

Neighbors shared food and water and comforted each other. “That’s the blessing so far in this,” Sommerville Johnston said outside her home.

Officials warned that rebuilding from the widespread loss of homes and property would be lengthy and difficult. The storm upended life throughout the Southeast.

Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, raised that state's death toll Monday to 25, telling reporters that the storm “literally spared no one.” Most people in and around Augusta, a city of about 200,000 people near the South Carolina border, were still without power Monday, and Kemp and other officials tried to reassure residents that they felt their misery.

Deaths also were reported in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Monday that hundreds of roads were closed across western North Carolina and that shelters across the area were housing more than 1,000 people.

Cooper implored residents in western North Carolina to avoid travel, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams spread throughout the region in search of stranded people.

One rescue effort involved saving 41 people north of Asheville. Another mission focused on saving a single infant. The teams found people through both 911 calls and social media messages, North Carolina National Guard Adjutant General Todd Hunt said.

Video showed a mass of debris, including overturned pontoon boats and splintered wooden docks, covering the surface of Lake Lure, a picturesque spot tucked between the mountains outside Asheville.

President Joe Biden described the impact of the storm as “stunning” and said he would visit the area this week as long as it does not disrupt rescues or recovery work. In a brief exchange with reporters, he said the administration is giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm.

Hurricane Helene roared ashore late Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph (225 kph) winds. A weakened Helene quickly moved through Georgia, then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded creeks and rivers and strained dams.

There have been hundreds of water rescues, including in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday.

More than 2 million homeowners and other utility customers were still without power Sunday night. South Carolina had the most outages and Gov. Henry McMaster asked for patience as crews dealt with widespread snapped power poles.

“We want people to remain calm. Help is on the way, it is just going to take time,” McMaster told reporters outside the airport in Aiken County.

The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.

Jessica Drye Turner in Texas had begged for someone to rescue her family members stranded on their rooftop in Asheville amid rising floodwaters. “They are watching 18-wheelers and cars floating by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post on Friday.

But in a follow-up message Saturday, Turner said help had not arrived in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her 6-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and the three drowned.

“I cannot convey in words the sorrow, heartbreak and devastation my sisters and I are going through,” she wrote.

The state was sending water supplies and other items toward Buncombe County and Asheville, but mudslides blocking Interstate 40 and other highways prevented supplies from making it. The county’s own water supplies were on the other side of the Swannanoa River, away from where most of the 270,000 people in Buncombe County live, officials said.

Law enforcement was making plans to send officers to places that still had water, food or gas because of reports of arguments and threats of violence, the county sheriff said.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell toured south Georgia on Sunday and planned to be in North Carolina Monday.

“It’s still very much an active search and rescue mission” in western North Carolina, Criswell said. “And we know that there’s many communities that are cut off just because of the geography” of the mountains, where damage to roads and bridges have cut off certain areas.

Biden on Saturday pledged federal government help for Helene's “overwhelming” devastation. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.

In Florida's Big Bend, some lost nearly everything they own. Some churches canceled regular services Sunday while others like Faith Baptist Church in Perry opted to worship outside.

Standing water and tree debris still covers the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. The church called on parishioners to come “pray for our community” in a message posted to the congregation’s Facebook page.

“We have power. We don’t have electricity,” Immaculate Conception Catholic Church parishioner Marie Ruttinger said. “Our God has power. That’s for sure.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it looked “like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air.

In eastern Georgia near the border with South Carolina, officials notified Augusta residents on Sunday morning that water service would be shut off for 24 to 48 hours because trash and debris blocked the ability to pump water.

With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.

Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.

Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes within hours.

Tropical Storm Kirk formed Monday in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and is expected to become a “large and powerful hurricane” by Tuesday night or Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was located about 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) west of the Cabo Verde Islands with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (70 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, and the storm system was not a threat to land.

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine, and Payne reported from Perry, Florida. Haya Panjwani in Washington, Kate Brumback in Atlanta, and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed.

Rescue workers from the Pamlico County rescue team are shown working in the aftermath of Helene the area of Chimney Rock, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Pamlico County Special Operations via AP)

Rescue workers from the Pamlico County rescue team are shown working in the aftermath of Helene the area of Chimney Rock, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Pamlico County Special Operations via AP)

Rescue workers from the Pamlico County rescue team are shown working in the aftermath of Helene the area of Chimney Rock, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Pamlico County Special Operations via AP)

Rescue workers from the Pamlico County rescue team are shown working in the aftermath of Helene the area of Chimney Rock, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Pamlico County Special Operations via AP)

Crews work to clean up the tons of sand and debris pushed onto Gulf Boulevard from Hurricane Helene storm surge, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Madeira Beach, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

The sun shines through a hole in a building after storm surge from Hurricane Helene sent tons of sand into homes, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Madeira Beach, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

A home completely destroyed by fire due to Hurricane Helene is pictured on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Madeira Beach, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

An aerial view of flood damage along the Pigeon River left by Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Newport, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A barrier blocks a flooded Carbon City Road due to the torrential rain from Hurricane Helene , Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024 in downtown Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

After waiting on long lines to fill up their gas tanks at the Sheetz station, people were also filling up containers of gas for their generators after Hurricane Helene caused power outages, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

A Dominion Energy lineman works on a power line in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in North Augusta, S.C. (AP Photo/Artie Walker Jr.)

Residents wait in line with gas cans at a Gas Plus gas station in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in North Augusta, S.C. (AP Photo/Artie Walker Jr.)

Daniel Dickert walks to plant an American flag on is property were his boat shed was destroyed and his home damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Jena, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Residents wait in long lines for gas at Parker's Kitchen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Aiken, S.C. (AP Photo/Artie Walker Jr.)

Jose Salazar dumps debris as he helps gut a property that took on a storm surge in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Steinhatchee, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A passerby checks the water depth of a flooded road, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. Torrential rain from Hurricane Helene left many area streets flooded. In addition, traffic lights are inoperable due to no power, with downed power lines and trees. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

A vehicle sits outside of its garage after storm surge from Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Madeira Beach, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Chris Jordan, maintenance manager for Horseshoe Beach, tries to find a water shutoff valve amid the rubble of the destroyed city hall in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The Riverside RV park was flooded from the overflowing Catawba River after torrential rain from Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Workers clean up a dock where a boat shed was destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Jena, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A tattered American flag hangs on a rope on a now closed road in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Jena, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

An uprooted tree landed on a pickup truck in front of a home on East Main Street after Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Glen Alpine, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Workers clean and gut a property that was flooded from the storm surge, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Steinhatchee, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A stop sign can be barely seen above a flooded parking lot after torrential rain from Hurricane Helene caused severe flooding, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

This aerial drone view shows damaged homes and a vehicle collapsed into water after storm surge from Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Madeira Beach, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)