(The Center Square) – Seven people remain unaccounted for or missing as the seventh week of recovery from Hurricane Helene moves on in North Carolina.
The storm, a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall Sept. 26 in Florida, killed 231 across seven states. The toll is 102 in North Carolina, with 43 in Buncombe County.
In an email from North Carolina Emergency Management to The Center Square, Communications Chief Justin Gainey said the seven include three in Yancey County, two in Avery, and one each in Mitchell and Macon counties.
Kelley Richardson, communications supervisor in the Division of Public Health for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Henderson and Yancey counties had 10 deaths each and there have been five in Avery and Haywood. The leading cause of death from the storm was drownings (34), landslides (23) and blunt force injuries (21).
Updates from DHHS have been scaled back to twice a week.
Helene, the second of three hurricanes to hit Florida in a span of 66 days, dissipated over the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, dumping more than 30 inches of rain in multiple places.
Respective state officials say 49 were killed in South Carolina, 34 in Georgia, 25 in Florida, 18 in Tennessee, two in Virginia and one in Indiana. Numbers were confirmed by The Center Square based on information supplied by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services; South Carolina Department of Public Safety; Georgia Emergency Management Agency; Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Tennessee Emergency Management Agency; Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; and the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.
Helene is the fourth most deadly hurricane from the Atlantic Basin in the last three-quarters of a century. Only Katrina (2005, deaths 1,392), Audrey (1957, deaths 416) and Camille (1969, deaths 256) killed more people.
According to PowerOutage.us late Monday morning, the total without power in Yancey County is down to 312. At the height of the storm the last weekend of September, more than 1 million lost power.
According to DriveNC.org, the total road closures because of Helene remains 294. This includes one interstate, 21 federal highways, 30 state roads and 242 secondary roads.
