FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – The death toll of Hurricane Helene The number rose to 227 on Saturday as the grim task of recovering bodies continued more than a week after the monster storm ravaged the Southeast and killed people in six states.
Helene made landfall on September 26 as a Category 4 hurricane and caused a wide swath of destruction as it moved north from Florida, washing away homes, destroying roads and knocking out electricity and cell phone service for millions of people.
The number of deaths reached 225 on Friday; the next day, two more were recorded in South Carolina. It was still unclear how many people were involved missing or missingand the toll could rise even higher.
Helene is the deadliest hurricane to hit the US mainland since Katrina in 2005. About half of the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens of others died in Georgia and South Carolina.
The city of Asheville, in the western mountains of North Carolina, was particularly hard hit. A week later, workers used brooms and heavy machinery to clear mud and dirt outside the New Belgium Brewing Company, which sits next to the French Broad River and is one of thousands of city businesses and households affected.
So far, North Carolina residents have received more than $27 million in individual assistance approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said MaryAnn Tierney, a regional administrator for the agency. More than 83,000 people have signed up for individual assistance, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.
In Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, FEMA-approved aid has surpassed $12 million for survivors, Tierney said during a news briefing Saturday.
“This is essential assistance that will help people with their immediate needs, but also displacement assistance that will help them if they cannot stay in their homes,” she said.
She encouraged residents affected by the storm to register for disaster assistance.
“It’s the first step in the recovery process,” she said. “We can provide immediate relief in the form of critical need assistance to replace food, water, medicine, other life safety, critical items, as well as displacement assistance if you cannot stay in your home.”
Helene’s raging floodwaters shook mountain towns hundreds of miles inland and far from where the storm made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast, including in the Tennessee mountains that Dolly Parton calls home.
The country music star has announced a $1 million donation to the Mountain Ways Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing immediate relief to victims of Hurricane Helene.
Additionally, her East Tennessee companies and the Dollywood Foundation are joining their efforts and pledging to match her donation to Mountain Ways with a $1 million contribution.
Parton said she feels a close connection to the storm victims because so many of them “grew up in the mountains just like I did.”
“I can’t stand to see anyone in pain, so I wanted to do what I could to help after these terrible floods,” she said. “I hope we can all be a little bit of light in the world for our friends, our neighbors – even strangers – in this dark time they are going through.”
Walmart’s U.S. President and CEO John Furner said the company, including Sam’s Club and the Walmart Foundation, would increase its commitment and donate a total of $10 million to hurricane relief efforts.
In Newport, an eastern Tennessee city of about 7,000 residents, residents continued cleaning up Saturday from the devastation caused by Helene’s flooding.
Mud was still clinging to the basement walls of a funeral home on Main Street. The ground floor chapel of another nearby chapel was dried out, while a painting of Jesus still hung on the wall in an otherwise bare room.
Newport City Hall and its police department also drew water from the swollen Pigeon River. Some of the modest one-story houses along the banks were destroyed, the walls crumbling and the rooms exposed.
Farther east in unincorporated Del Rio, along a bend in the French Broad River, residents and volunteers toiled to clean up. The smell of wood hung in the air as people used chainsaws to cut through fallen trees, and Bobcats beeped as they moved mangled sheet metal and other debris. Many homes suffered damage, including one that slid off its foundation.
Associated Press journalists Jeff Roberson in Newport, Tennessee; Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; and Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, contributed.