SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Hurricane Helene came ashore Thursday as a Category 4 storm, but it continues to wreak havoc throughout the Southeast as a post-tropical cyclone. The storm caused massive damage as it tore through Florida and parts of Georgia, then into the mountains of western North Carolina. Officials say that Helene has killed dozens of people, caused billions of dollars in damage and left more than 3 million people without power. The National Hurricane Center calls the flooding from the storm catastrophic. Laura Hackett of Blue Ridge Public Radio witnessed the storm and joins us now from Asheville, N.C. Laura, thanks for being with us.
LAURA HACKETT: Good morning, Scott. Thank you for having me on.
SIMON: Storm has passed, but the recovery is just beginning. What are the biggest challenges today?
HACKETT = BYLINE: Yeah, what's hard right now is we just have very limited information about what's happening in our communities. In Asheville, we're just coming off a city-implemented curfew this morning, and so cell service, power, water outages - those are all still happening throughout the region. There's also been extreme flooding with some parts of town and some communities completely underwater, cars and even shipping containers floating around. And all roads in western North Carolina remain closed.
So recovery has really barely started because officials can't even get to those places to assess damage. You know, mountain roads that are already difficult to traverse have been completely blocked, you know, keeping critical emergency services out. And medical crews are having to navigate fallen trees and extensive flooding throughout the region.
SIMON: And, Laura, how does communications dropping out in this big swath of Appalachia, including the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, complicate recovery?
HACKETT = BYLINE: Yeah, communication has been such a huge challenge. I mean, like I said, cell service is out for many counties, tens of thousands of people at the least. In fact, we have two rural reporters who currently don't have cell service, so we haven't even been able to connect with them to see what they're experiencing in those far-out places.
So that lack of service, plus all those closed roads, means there's really no way to call for help, no way for folks to let family and friends know they're OK. People are really isolated in a lot of places. NC Emergency Management says that the infrastructure damage will take time to repair, but there's no specific estimates of time frame of when that communication will come back online.
SIMON: And there were reports yesterday of a possible dam failure at Lake Lure.
HACKETT = BYLINE: Yeah, Lake Lure is about an hour southeast of Asheville - popular tourist resort area. "Dirty Dancing" was filmed there. Yesterday, the National Weather Service called for an imminent failure of the dam, and emergency staff went door-to-door to encourage evacuation in that 1,200-person town. What ended up happening is that water did flow over, but so far, the 100-year-old dam has held. And as of last night, officials from the county have said that engineers have evaluated the dam and determined it's no longer at imminent risk of failure.
SIMON: And, Laura, who seems to have been hit hardest so far?
HACKETT = BYLINE: Yeah. And it's still so early to tell because, you know, we have so many of these blackout zones. But as is often the case, the most vulnerable have been hard hit. So, in Asheville, people in temporary shelters, in permanent supportive housing were moved quickly by law enforcement and bussed to shelters. I did speak with one family of four who was evacuated from the Super 8 hotel where they are living. They were rushed into a bus with no time to grab their belongings, not even their shoes. Teenage daughter Haley (ph), knee-deep in the water, described that scene in her home.
HALEY: The bed started floating, and it kind of scared me, too, 'cause the water was bubbling. And that, like, freaked me out a little.
HACKETT = BYLINE: So obviously a very scary situation for Haley and the rest of the people in this region.
SIMON: Laura Hackett, who is a reporter with Blue Ridge Public Radio in Asheville, N.C. Laura, thanks so much, and our best wishes to you and your colleagues, who are doing such a great job in covering this story.
HACKETT = BYLINE: Thank you so much, Scott. I appreciate it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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