FLASH
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At least 30 people are dead and many more are missing in just one North Carolina county after Hurricane Helene ripped through the state and caused catastrophic flooding.
A clearer picture of the damage caused by the storm as it passed through Florida and Georgia emerged on Sunday, with Buncombe County appearing to be the hardest hit.
"We have a biblical devastation," said Ryan Cole, an emergency official in the county, which contains the mountain town of Asheville. "This is the most significant natural disaster any of us have ever seen."
At least 105 people have died nationwide since the hurricane made landfall in Florida on Thursday, according to CBS, and that number is expected to rise as officials reach more areas.
Helene began as a hurricane – the most powerful on record to hit Florida's Big Bend, and moved north into Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. Most of the deaths have been confirmed in North and South Carolina, where Helene made landfall as a tropical storm.
By Sunday evening, officials in North Carolina said 30 people had died in Buncombe County alone. Crews across the state are battling power and cell service outages, downed trees and hundreds of road closures.
Some residents returned to find their homes completely destroyed on Sunday. And with nearly 1,000 people still missing in Buncombe County, relatives are working to locate family members with limited cell service.
"This storm has caused catastrophic destruction ... of historic proportions," said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.
The American Red Cross has opened more than 140 shelters for those in southeastern states who evacuated their homes. More than 2,000 people are currently using the shelters, the organization said on Sunday.
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