Hurricane Helene: Almost 200 dead, search for missing people continues | Hurricane Helene

A week after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the U.S., search and rescue teams continue to search for missing people in parts of the Southeast devastated by the storm, as the death toll continues to rise, approaching a million people in the region still without power.

According to CNN, officials in six states have reported at least 191 deaths as a result of the storm and warned that the death toll is expected to rise as many people remain missing and recovery efforts are underway.

Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida last Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane. It then weakened to a tropical storm and moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, bringing strong winds, rainfall, storm surges and devastating flooding to the region and destroying communities.

The storm, considered one of the deadliest in U.S. history, caused power outages and disruptions to cell phone networks in many cities.

According to PowerOutage.us, as of Thursday morning, over 350,000 people in South Carolina were without power, almost 300,000 people in North Carolina and around 260,000 in Georgia had no power.

One of the hardest-hit areas was North Carolina, where many residents in the mountainous areas of the western part of the state have been cut off and isolated, without power or telephone service, since last week because of the storm.

In Buncombe County, North Carolina, officials reported that at least 61 people lost their lives as a result of the storm. County officials said National Guardsmen were assisting in distributing food, water and supplies to local distribution sites and shelters as many residents remained isolated and without power and were encouraged to conserve water.

Joe Biden will visit Georgia and Florida on Thursday to assess the damage caused by the hurricane there. This follows the US President's visit to the hurricane-hit areas of North and South Carolina on Wednesday.

Biden has approved federal disaster assistance for survivors in certain counties in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

On Wednesday, Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) Administrator Deanne Criswell also announced that Biden has also provided additional disaster assistance to the states of North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, as emergency responders continue to work to meet the immediate needs of survivors to become and their communities.

The Biden administration has said that over 4,800 members of the total federal workforce are deployed in affected areas across the country, including over 1,000 from Fema.

On Wednesday, Biden directed the Defense Department to deploy up to 1,000 active-duty troops to bolster the North Carolina National Guard and help provide supplies, food and water to isolated communities.

More than $10 million had gone directly to those affected by the storm, the Biden administration said, and as of Wednesday, the government said Fema had provided over 8.8 million meals, more than 7.4 million liters of water, 150 Generators and more delivered 225,000 tarpaulins to the region.

Search and rescue teams have conducted nearly 1,500 structural assessments and hundreds of rescues and evacuations, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this week.

He added that nearly 6,000 National Guard members were deployed in the six states affected by the storm.

On Wednesday, Kamala Harris visited Augusta, Georgia, to survey the devastation caused by the storm.

The US Vice President and Democratic candidate will visit North Carolina in the coming days. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate and former president, visited Georgia earlier this week.

As of Thursday morning, boil water warnings and water conservation orders were in effect for several areas in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia due to the storm.

Experts said it could take weeks to understand the storm's damage because the hardest-hit communities are difficult to reach.

The National Weather Service released a stunning view of Helene from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite on Tuesday. “Helene's path can be seen from space, with all the power outages the day after it passes through the southeast,” the agency said.

As the southeastern U.S. struggles to rebuild from Helene, others are preparing for Hurricane Kirk, which could bring dangerously large ocean waves to U.S. coasts this weekend. Kirk was a Category 3 storm as of Thursday morning and is located about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) east of the Northern Leeward Islands. It is expected to strengthen as it moves northwest, the National Hurricane Center said.

Although it is not currently expected to make landfall, dramatic sea swells could occur in the Leeward Islands east of Puerto Rico on Friday, Bermuda and the Greater Antilles on Saturday, and the Bahamas and the Bahamas on Sunday US East Coast come.

“These waves are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the National Hurricane Center advised.