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A tree punched a hole in his roof. He's staying put for now.
A tree crashed into Doug Miller’s house in Arden, North Carolina, on Friday and punched a hole in his roof when the remnants of Hurricane Helene struck. Another tree took out his van.
“We spent the first few nights in our neighbors' house, God bless them, to make sure this tree is not going to make like a cheese slicer and slice its way through the block of cheese — our house," Miller said.
Miller covered the tree with a tarp and has returned home since.
“It seems to be staying in a stable position," he said. "We’re staying in a different part of the house. It’s not overhead.”
Miller, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of North Carolina Asheville, said his neighborhood has banded together to check in on one another, share food and saw down trees blocking roads. He reckons his area won’t have running water for two to three weeks.
Miller had followed the forecast carefully, and he expected Asheville to take a serious blow, but not like this.
“We weren’t expecting it to be this bad,” Miller said. “A lot of people were hit by basically hurricane-force winds and rain — it was still a very intense storm. We were seeing gusts that were easily 60-70 mph and potentially 80. What I saw was rain horizontally and trees moving in ways I never expected.”
Region's senators pushing for quick action from Congress
A bipartisan group of senators from states affected by Helene is calling for Congress to act quickly to pass disaster relief, perhaps returning early from its recess, which is supposed to last until after the Nov. 5 election.
All senators from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia signed a letter today addressed to Senate leadership and top appropriators (senators charged with writing spending bills) with the request.
“Although the true level of devastation is still unfolding, it is clear that Congress must act to meet the unmet needs in our states and address the scope and scale of destruction experienced by our constituents,” the senators wrote.
“This may even require Congress to come back in October to ensure we have enough time to enact legislation before the end of this calendar year,” they added.
It remains unlikely that Congress will return early from its recess. Congress just passed a government funding bill that is expected to give the Federal Emergency Management Agency the resources it needs in the near term. And, as NBC News has reported, officials are expected to take several weeks to finish assessing hurricane damage and determine what additional resources are required from Congress.
Still, a letter from senators whose constituents are most affected by the storm carries weight, and the optics of being off on recess during a natural disaster are not helping.
Access to water is a critical need in western North Carolina as the region struggles days after the flooding disaster caused by Hurricane Helene. Many of the pipes that deliver the water were washed away.
Some families are still trying to get in touch with loved ones who haven’t been heard from.
World Central Kitchen has served more than 64,000 meals in hurricane-hit states
World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit disaster relief organization founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, said today it has served 64,049 meals in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia.
The organization, aided by 16 restaurant-based partners in North Carolina and Tennessee, has also distributed 5,200 sandwiches in those storm-affected states, it said in a statement.
It has set up field production kitchens in Clearwater, Florida, and Asheville, North Carolina, the latter emerging as the center of the hardest-hit region in the wake of the hurricane. At least 57 people are confirmed dead in Buncombe County, where Asheville is, according to Sheriff Quentin Miller.
Five tanker trucks carrying 6,200 gallons of water each were sent to Asheville, which has suffered a breakdown of its water system, the organization said.
Thirty-five World Central Kitchen food trucks were deployed to Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, it said.
Two helicopters were also sent to “scout” areas in North Carolina and Florida to determine need, the organization said. Food distribution in storm-ravaged areas, including western North Carolina, will continue to expand this week, it said.
Georgia governor suspends gas tax after hurricane
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said tonight that he has suspended the gasoline tax in the state as more than 400,000 homes and businesses remain without electricity.
“As Georgians recover from Hurricane Helene, with the support of our legislative partners, I have suspended the gas tax for the duration of this State of Emergency — bringing relief to communities who continue to rely on fuel to power their homes and necessary equipment,” Kemp wrote on X.
Georgia’s state gasoline tax is a little more than 32 cents per gallon.
Tonight there were 400,030 customers without power in the state, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us. The utility Georgia Power said today that Hurricane Helene was "the most destructive hurricane in the Georgia Power’s history" and that it had around 278,000 customers without electricity.
More than 1.4 million in Southeast still without power
More than 1.4 million utility customers in the Helene-ravaged Southeast remain without power, according to the utility tracker PowerOutage.US.
South Carolina remained the state with the most customers in the dark. The number is 540,849 tonight, with the counties of Greenville (149,907) and Spartanburg (121,277) posting the largest outage numbers, which represent more than half the known utility customers in those locations, according to PowerOutage.US.
Georgia has 412,471 customers in the dark, followed by North Carolina, with 359,170.
The numbers are a vast improvement from the time of the storm's peak destruction last week, when nearly 5 million customers were without power.
The White House said in a fact sheet that more than 50,000 personnel from outside storm-affected states were sent to help restore power and that the Army Corps of Engineers is moving generators and other equipment to the Carolinas.
Chimney Rock and Lake Lure in North Carolina were among the areas hardest hit by Helene's flash flooding. Stranded residents there are still being rescued.
7.1M meals, 6.5M liters of water handed out, White House says
Amid a rising death toll, cellphone service outages and washed-out roadways, the White House today sought to reassure hurricane survivors the federal response is sizable.
In a statement, the White House noted that 4,500 federal personnel were assigned to Helene rescue and recovery efforts, including about 1,000 from FEMA.
The agency has distributed more than 7.1. million meals, 6.5 million liters of water, 150 generators and more than 200,000 tarps as of today, the White House said.
Biden is set to visit North Carolina tomorrow to survey damage, and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell "will remain in North Carolina" to oversee federal assistance, the agency said.
Forty-one counties in Georgia were added today to the areas in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina placed under federal declarations of major disaster, which allows those affected by Helene to immediately apply to FEMA for help, the White House said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra yesterday declared a public health emergency for South Carolina and Tennessee, which will share the status with Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, it said. The declaration makes it easier for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries affected by the storm to get care and medicine, the White House said.
Asheville pizza place dishes out free slices
People waited in an around-the-corner line today outside Asheville's Mellow Mushroom as it dished out free slices to do its part in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
The city was hit hard by the storm, mostly by floodwaters that knocked out its water system and washed out roads, temporarily isolating Asheville.
The Mellow Mushroom's owner, Gerry Mahon, said he would give away $5,000 worth of pizza.
The location, one of multiple Mellow Mushroom restaurants in the Southeast, is without water, so Mahon hauled in water from his home outside Asheville, he said.
He said it's the least he could do knowing the extent of storm-related devastation, including 57 dead in the Asheville region, an unknown number of properties destroyed and ongoing searches by survivors for loved ones who have lost contact amid cellphone outages.
“This is for them, knowing what they have been through," Mahon said. "We’re going to do this for as long as we can, because these people, so many of them, have seen things that you and I should never wish to see. So that’s why we do this.”
Death toll in North Carolina's hardest-hit county now at 57
The storm-related death toll in North Carolina's hardest-hit county is now 57, Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said at a news conference today.
"I have done the unfortunate task and confirmed now that we have a total of 57," he said.
The county includes Asheville, which was devastated by Helene. The storm temporarily isolated the city and left it largely without potable tap water, officials have said.
Authorities are still processing dozens of missing persons reports, with some likely to be confirmed as deaths, increasing the death number.
The county death toll accounts for most of the storm-related deaths in North Carolina, and it is likely to boost the total number of deaths related to last week's storm significantly.
Before today's announcement, Buncombe County was the site of 40 of North Carolina's 49 confirmed deaths. The storm total in the Southeast was 134 before Miller announced the new figure for the county.