CNN
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South East has difficulty with it widespread destruction after Helene made landfall Thursday as the strongest hurricane on record, slamming into Florida’s Big Bend region and ripping through multiple states, killing at least 62 people, knocking out power to millions and leaving families in flooding. In hard-hit North Carolina, days of persistent flooding have turned roads into waterways, leaving many without basic necessities and under pressure. state resources. Here’s the latest:

• More than 60 deaths in 5 states: Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. At least 10 people are dead in North Carolina, according to a news release from Governor Roy Cooper’s office Saturday evening. At least 23 people have been killed in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, authorities said. At least 17 people have been killed in Georgia, including two by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesman for Governor Brian Kemp. At least 11 people have died in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. One person died in Craig County, Virginia, in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday.

• Dozens missing due to communication failure: More than 60 people were missing Saturday evening in Buncombe County, North Carolina — which includes the city of Asheville — and more than 150 search and rescue operations were underway. County Manager Avril Pinder called the storm “Buncombe County’s own Hurricane Katrina,” and officials said communications systems have been disrupted as cell phone service is not expected in the region for at least “several days.” The number of emergency calls is also extremely high, with the county receiving more than 5,500 911 calls between Thursday and Saturday mornings and conducting more than 130 rapid water rescues. More than two dozen aerial rescue operations were conducted early Saturday in McDowell County, where the emergency center was also inundated with calls, with many involving patients “trapped with severe trauma, without oxygen or essential medical supplies.” Emergency response efforts have been hampered by massive landslides, fallen trees, power lines and severely flooded roads.

• Nearly 400 roads closed in North Carolina: About 390 roads and dozens of highways remained closed in western North Carolina as of Sunday morning, according to the state’s transportation department. Access to clean drinking water is another problem: Seven water plants in the state — in Avery, Burke, Haywood, Jackson, Rutherford, Watauga and Yancey counties — have closed, impacting nearly 70,000 households. Seventeen water plants reported that they had no power. Fifty boil water advisories are in effect in Western communities.

• Millions without power in Southeast: Helene’s remains continued to knock out power for several eastern U.S. states on Saturday, leaving about 2.5 million customers in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us.

• ‘It looks like a bomb went off’ in Georgia: Helene “has spared no one,” Governor Brian Kemp said this on Saturday. Among the 17 people who died in Georgia, according to Kemp, were a mother and her twin boys aged one month, a boy aged seven and a girl aged four, and a man aged 58. “It looks like a tornado went off, it looks like a bomb went off,” Kemp said.

• South Carolina ‘destroyed’ by Helene: The National Weather Service Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, said Saturday it is “devastated by the horrific flooding and widespread wind damage caused by Hurricane Helene.” The agency called it “the worst event in the history of our office” in a Facebook post on Saturday evening.

• ‘Complete destruction’ along Florida’s coast: Days after Helene hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane Thursday night, scores of residents have been displaced, boil water warnings have been issued in multiple counties and power has been knocked out to more than 230,000 customers. “You’re seeing some of the homes just completely destroyed,” DeSantis said Saturday, noting that Helene had hit some of the same communities hit by Hurricanes Idalia last year and Debby last month.

• Additional rain expected: Helene became a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, but rainfall is expected to continue over parts of the southern Appalachians this weekend. Additional totals of half an inch are expected for areas of western North Carolina, including Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Up to 2 inches is possible for parts of Virginia and West Virginia through Monday. “Additional rainfall is not expected to worsen ongoing flooding, but could lead to excessive runoff due to saturated soils,” the weather service said Sunday morning.

Since Helene flooded the region, the neighborhoods have turned into lakes. cancelled cars like toys, broken trees like twigs and businesses left underwater. Piles of thick mud and floating debris blocked the streets, while torrential rains collapsed roads and swept away bridges. There are hundreds of people left in North Carolina stranded in homes, hospitals or transportation systems, awaiting rescue.

“The priority is to get people out,” North Carolina Governor Cooper told CNN affiliate Spectrum News. “And bringing in supplies.”

But officials face a major hurdle: “Everything is underwater. It’s very difficult for them to see exactly what the problems are,” Cooper said.

On Friday, Stevie Hollander watched as water flooded his apartment building in Asheville, where he lives on the second floor with his sister and her fiancé.

“The water almost reached us, but luckily it went down,” he told CNN. Most residents on the first floor left before their units were flooded, while others moved to stay with residents on higher floors.

“We all really need help here. We need water, some kind of energy, food and gas. Something.” he said, “We just don’t really know what to do.”

Hollander and his family tried to drive north on Saturday, but road closures forced them to return to the apartment. The family is left with only four bottles of water and little non-perishable food, Hollander said.

In Black Mountain, North Carolina, Sofia Grace Kunst faced a different problem: A landslide, she said, tore through the window and wall of a dining room where she played Uno with six friends during a weeklong trip.

It was exactly 9:10 a.m. Friday when mud and debris shattered a window and flowed into the room, she said.

“Landslide! Everyone run,” someone shouted.

“I see a giant wave of mud, trees and rocks coming towards us,” Kunst told CNN, estimating it was five feet high.

She ran into the main room of the dining hall, only to see the wall completely collapse. The group fled to the porch, where many of her peers were crying. Art sat in shock, barefoot.

Only then did she realize that she still had her Uno cards in hand.

The group eventually trekked through muddy water and took refuge in a parking lot on higher ground. They were stranded there for some time, but eventually reached shelter.

“That’s when it hit the most people. There were a lot of tears,” Kunst said. “For me it didn’t really get emotional, but my body started to react. I started shaking like crazy. I felt like I had to scream or give off energy,” Kunst said.

As dawn broke Saturday, Patrick McNamara, who runs a small milk distribution business in Asheville, got his first glimpse of the devastation Helene left behind.

“The water was five feet above the dock,” McNamara said. “So the whole building was wiped out.”

His company machines were strewn across the warehouse, the milk was spoiled and mud was all over the floor. McNamara estimates he will have to throw away thousands of gallons of milk.

Concerned about access to resources, McNamara said he may have to consider moving the company to another location.

As he begins a lengthy cleanup process, McNamara said he is confident the community will be able to rebuild itself and have a successful tourism season despite the devastation.