Long water and power outages from Helene test patience in the Carolinas and Georgia

SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Many residents of the Carolinas still lacked running water, cellphone service and electricity Wednesday as rescuers searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast and killed at least 166 people.

President Joe Biden will survey the devastation in the two states as floodwaters receded and revealed more of the death and destruction left in Helene’s path.

More than 1.2 million customers still had no power Wednesday in the Carolinas and Georgia, where Helene tore far inland after initial landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast. Some residents cooked food on charcoal grills or hiked to high ground in the hopes of finding a signal to let loved ones know they are alive.

“We have to jump-start this recovery process,” Biden said Tuesday, estimating it will cost billions. “People are scared to death. This is urgent.”

While Biden is in the Carolinas, Vice President Kamala Harris will be in neighboring Georgia.

Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris in the mountains of western North Carolina looking for more victims. At least 57 people were killed in Buncombe County alone, home to city of Asheville, a tourism haven known for its art galleries, breweries and outdoor activities.

In small Swannanoa, outside Asheville, receding floodwaters revealed cars stacked on top of others and mobile homes that had floated away. Sinkholes pockmarked roads caked with mud and debris.

Cliff Stewart survived 2 feet of water that poured into his home, topping the wheels on his wheelchair and sending his medicine bottles floating. Left without electricity and reliant on food drop-offs from friends, he has refused offers to help him leave.

“Where am I going to go?” the Marine Corps veteran said. “This is all I’ve got. I just don’t want to give it up, because what am I going to do? Be homeless? I’d rather die right here than live homeless.”

Across the border in east Tennessee, a caravan including Gov. Bill Lee surveying damage outside the town of Erwin drove by a crew pulling two bodies from the wreckage, a grim reminder that the rescue and recovery operations are still very much ongoing and the death toll is likely to rise.

In Augusta, Georgia, Sherry Brown converted power from her car's alternator to keep her refrigerator running. She has been taking “bird baths” with water collected in coolers. In another part of the city, people waited in line more than three hours to get water from one of five centers set up to serve more than 200,000 people.

More than 150,000 households have registered for assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and that number is expected to rise rapidly in the coming days, said Frank Matranga, an agency representative.

Nearly 2 million ready-to-eat meals and more than a million liters of water have been sent to the hardest-hit areas, he said.

The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina, dumping more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain in places.

The administration of Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday that more than two dozen water plants remained closed. Active-duty U.S. military units may be needed to assist the long-term recovery, he said, adding that Biden had given “the green light” to mobilizing military assets soon.

A section of one of the region’s main arteries, Interstate 40, reopened Tuesday after a mudslide was cleared, but a collapsed stretch near North Carolina’s border with Tennessee remained closed.

Residents and business owners wore masks and gloves while clearing debris Tuesday in Hot Springs, North Carolina, where almost every building along the main street was heavily damaged.

Sarah Calloway, who owns the deli and gourmet grocery Vaste Riviere Provisions, said the storm arrived frighteningly quickly. She helped fill sandbags the day the night before, but they turned out to be useless. The water rose so rapidly that even though she and others were in an apartment on an upper floor, she feared they would not be safe. They called to request a rescue from a swift water team.

“It was really challenging to watch how quickly it rose up and then just to watch whole buildings floating down the river. It was something I can’t even describe,” she said.

In the Black Mountain Mobile Home Park in Swannanoa, Carina Ramos and Ezekiel Bianchi were overwhelmed by the damage. The couple, their children and dog fled in the predawn darkness on Friday as the Swannanoa River’s rapidly rising waters began flooding the bottom end of the park.

By then, trees blocked the roads and the couple abandoned their three vehicles, all of which flooded.

“We left everything because we were panicking,” Ramos said.

The widespread damage and outages affecting communications infrastructure left many people without stable access to the internet and cell service.

“People are walking the streets of Canton with their phones up in the air trying to catch a cellphone signal like it’s a butterfly,” said Mayor Zeb Smathers, of Canton, North Carolina. “Every single aspect of this response has been extremely crippled by lack of cellphone communication. The one time we absolutely needed our cellphones to work they failed.”

Teams from Verizon worked to repair toppled cell towers and damaged cables and to provide alternative forms of connectivity, the company said in a statement.

AT&T said it launched “one of the largest mobilizations of our disaster recovery assets for emergency connectivity support.”

The efforts to restore service was made more challenging by the region’s terrain and spread-out population, said David Zumwalt, president and CEO of the Association for Broadband Without Boundaries.

Helene blew ashore in Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane and upended life throughout the Southeast, with deaths reported in six states: Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, in addition to the Carolinas.

With at least 36 killed in South Carolina, Helene passed the 35 people who were killed in the state after Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989.

When Lee, the Tennessee governor, flew to the eastern part of the state to survey damage Tuesday, residents said the governor and his entourage were the first help they had seen since the storm hit.

“Where has everyone been?" one frustrated local asked. "We have been here alone."

Kruesi reported from Hampton, Tennessee. Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh; Jeffrey Collins in Augusta, Georgia; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Rebecca Santana in New Orleans; Shawn Chen in New York; Colleen Long in Washington; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.

President Joe Biden speaks during a briefing on the government's response to Hurricane Helene in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, left, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, right, look on. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

People ride in the back of a pickup truck on a street left covered in deep mud in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Ben Phillips scoops mud out a window of his house left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Train tracks washed out during Hurricane Helene run along the French Broad River, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Eva Markowitz stands covered in mud left by Hurricane Helene as she works to clean up Zadie's Market and Deli Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

People ride in the back of a pickup truck on a mud-covered street left in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Ben Phillips, left, and his wife Becca Phillips scrape mud out of the living room of their home left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Friends Robert Smith and David Mayben salvage items from the home of a family member who passed away in flooding, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hendersonville, N.C., in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Friends Robert Smith and David Mayben salvage items from the home of a family member who passed away in flooding, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 in Hendersonville, N.C., in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

All that is left is the foundation of one of the White family homes, destroyed by Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. The adjacent Catawba River flooded due to torrential rains destroying seven of the family's nine homes on the property. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

An overturned tractor lies next to an uprooted tree on the White family' property in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. The adjacent Catawba River flooded due to torrential rains destroying seven of the family's nine homes on the property. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Damaged to one of the White family's homes that was destroyed by Hurricane Helene is seen, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. The adjacent Catawba River flooded due to torrential rains destroying seven of the family's nine homes on the property. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

One of the homes belonging to the White family rests on its side in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. The adjacent Catawba River flooded due to torrential rains destroying seven of the family's nine homes on the property. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

A person pushes a wheelbarrow and trash can as clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene begins Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

People clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

A building is damaged as water rushed over the roof in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

An electrical box is damaged after flash flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Andy Brown uses a chain saw to cut apart a tree that destroyed his SUV when it fell during Hurricane Helene on in Augusta, Ga., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Sarah Calloway enters her restaurant to assess the damage left in the wake of Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Len Frisbee dumps a wheelbarrow of dirt as he helps with clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

A Madison County sheriff's vehicle passes damaged buildings along Bridge Street in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Vehicles and debris that were caught in a flash flood from Hurricane Helene rest on the side of tae road near the Swannanoa River, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A person enters a heavily damaged building as clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene begins Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Homes and vehicles that were damaged in a flash flood from Hurricane Helene lie on the side of a road near the Swannanoa River, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Members of the Civil Air Patrol load water for Hurricane Helene relief into a pickup truck at a water station in Augusta, Ga., on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Water is seen outside the banks of the Swannanoa river in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A trailer park that was inundated with water during a flash flood is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Cliff Stewart, who survived a flash flood whilst in a hospital bed, is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Search crews look for victims in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Search crews look for victims in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A person walks past a building heavily damaged during Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

A fireman walks through mud as they search for victims of flash flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Andy Brown takes a break on top of what remains of a tree that destroyed his SUV when it fell during Hurricane Helene on in Augusta, Ga., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

A person carries a chainsaw as cleanup begins in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

A search and rescue dog and handler searches for victims in deep mud in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Cindy White looks over the devastation inside her home caused by Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. The adjacent Catawba River flooded due to the torrential rains destroying the seven of family's nine homes on the property. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (AP) — An approaching typhoon bringing strong winds and torrential rainfall to Taiwan killed one person and injured dozens of others over the past few days and led to the evacuation of thousands from low-lying or mountainous areas.

At least 70 people were injured and one death died due to weather conditions attributed to Typhoon Krathon, Taiwan’s fire department said Wednesday.

One elderly man died after falling off a ladder while pruning tree branches in the eastern city of Hualien. Two others were missing.

The typhoon, packing maximum sustained winds of 173 kph (108 mph) and gusts of 209 kph (130 mph), was expected to make landfall early Thursday on Taiwan’s densely populated west coast, according to the Central Weather Administration.

Typhoons rarely hit Taiwan’s west coast, affecting instead the mountainous, eastern side of the island.

At least 128 centimeters (4.2 feet) of rain has fallen in coastal Taitung county in the past four days and 43 centimeters (17 inches) in the major port city of Kaohsiung ahead of the typhoon.

Authorities shut schools and government offices across the island and canceled all domestic flights.

In Hualien county, more than 3,000 people were evacuated from townships vulnerable to landslides. Almost 200 people in the southwestern city of Tainan and more than 800 residents of the southern Pingtung county were also evacuated.

Kaohsiung, a city of 2.7 million people expected to be directly hit by the typhoon, evacuated more than 2,500 of its residents from areas prone to mudslides and landslides. Military personnel helped evacuees into trucks which took them to temporary shelters.

Most stores and restaurants in the city remained closed for a second consecutive day. Shoppers emptied supermarket shelves of essentials including bread, meat and instant noodles.

Streets and markets were eerily empty. An industrial harbor south of the city was at a standstill.

Kaohsiung’s international airport looked deserted, with all flights canceled. Chan Ka Who, who had traveled there from Malaysia on vacation, said he was trying to return home but was stuck in Kaohsiung because all flights were grounded.

On Wednesday evening, the typhoon was centered about 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of Kaohsiung and was moving northeastward at around 8 kph (5 mph). It has been weakening and will continue to do so after landfall, the weather administration said.

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai earlier warned residents against approaching areas prone to flooding and landslides near rivers, the sea and the mountains. He likened Krathon’s intensity to that of Typhoon Thelma, which in 1977 badly damaged Kaohsiung and caused 37 deaths.

Almost 40,000 troops were on standby to help with rescue efforts.

In Pingtung county, residents near a flooded harbor piled up sandbags at their doors to prevent water from getting in. People waded through streets flooded up to their ankles.

The typhoon on Monday lashed the northern Philippine islands, where four people were killed and at least 5,000 were displaced, officials said.

An airline staffer works at the counter at a closed airport due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Waves crash onto the coastline of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon approaches to Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Waves crash on the coastline in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon approaches to Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People went to airline counters to ask about canceled flights due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Waves crash on the coastline in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon approaches to Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A man takes a selfie with waves hitting the shore of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Airline staff work at the counter at a closed airport due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A car moves along the shore in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A car moves along the shore in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People went to airline counters at an airport to ask about canceled flights due to approaching Typhoon Krathon, in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

A man runs away from waves when he was walking along the shore in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the area. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)