Hurricane Helene: People still unaccounted for days after storm as search efforts continue

The challenges are greatest in the rural parts of this western half of North Carolina.

The road into Swannanoa is open now but many roads within the small town are not. Population 5,000, it is a town in pieces days after Hurricane Helene deluged the region.

The recovery teams are here in force now. Roads are being patched up, bridges fixed and power lines slowly repaired. But putting lives back together will take much longer.

On the main street, I met Robert Buchanan; an elderly man who looked broken.

“We’re making it and the government is pouring in to help,” he said.

“It’s the worst I have ever seen it in 73 years. I grew up here. And this is as bad as I have ever seen it.”

As we chatted, his son and daughter-in-law-to-be arrived. They’re here to help him. Recovering his medicine from the destroyed home is their priority but they had their own stories of survival.

“People came up looking for help and she went out there with a boat to help some kids and an old guy that almost drowned getting out there to try to help people,” Elwood Buchanan said.

“Their trailer got washed away. It’s down the creek somewhere.”

They are one family, in one community of so many impacted.

Twelve miles up the road, on the edge of Asheville, from a bridge on the highway you can get a clear sense of the power of the water.

I watched as recovery teams below searched for those still unaccounted for.

The initial numbers were high – in the hundreds. The hope is that as the power and mobile signal are restored, people unaccounted for will identify themselves as safe.

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There is an urgent need to check all the bridges too for structural damage. They were put under huge pressure as the water swept through.

In the city itself, the historic riverside arts district has been wiped out.

So many small, independent businesses will now need to start again.

The only relief here is that because they were businesses, not homes, the loss is livelihood, not life.

It has taken a few days for the recovery to ramp up.

With the election a month away, there are political points to be scored of course.

The two hardest-hit states – North Carolina and Georgia – are both tight must-win swing states.

But we found few complaining, just gratitude that help is now here.