2024-10-08 19:37:00
A volunteer helps residents of a home destroyed by Storm Helena in North Carolina Eduardo Muñoz | REUTERS
“They are tough mountain people”, confides the police in the areas devastated by storm Helene, where volunteers use chainsaws and canoes to transport supplies
08 October 2024 . Updated at 9.39pm
To John Savage’s grandparents Firefighters found them curled up in bed in their home in South Carolina. They resigned themselves to the fact torments Elena decide whether to live or die. It was the second of a night of absolute terror. Dark, after the power lines fell, and strong, between walls that creaked from hurricane-force winds, gusts of rain, and the assault against the walls by avalanches of brown water coming down the slopes. A tree fell on his home on Beech Island and he destroyed the wedding room.
The meteorological catastrophe that is shaking the United States is summed up in an unprecedented reality: while rescuers are looking for people still missing since last week due to the passage of Helene through the two Carolinas and Georgia, the force four Hurricane Milton will hit Florida this morning. with the apparent promise to behave even more cruelly.
Milton, the worst hurricane in a century, threatens six million people in Florida miguel palace
The number of deaths in the previous storm officially rises 215 peoplebut the There are still many dozens of missing people. The authorities assume that there are anonymous bodies buried in the mud or displaced kilometers away under the pressure of the torrents. But the main assumption is that the majority of those absent are residents of remote and wooded areas who remain incommunicado, without electricity or telephone.
Thousands of volunteers try to reach them on foot, on horseback or even by canoe taking advantage of the streams because all the roads are broken or have been swallowed up by mud and rocks. An object much appreciated by patrols is the chainsaw; the only way to advance in the tangle of trunks and branches fallen everywhere. There is a clear urgency to go to missing homes and shacks where there is known to be no drinking water or where someone lives who requires daily care.
The hope lies in the fact that “they are mountain people, they are tough”, he says Los Angeles Times Junior Seatz, chief of the volunteer fire department in Creston, a town full of vast natural spaces. Seatz checks the rescue equipment and talks to the volunteers who continually enlist in the search. What does it mean to bring a group? «Chainsaws, petrol, off-road vehicles. And good shoulders”.
Exciting stories unfold in the two states mired in mud. There are families who have armed themselves with bicycles and chainsaws to try to reach the homes of their loved ones. «I spoke to my mother half an hour before. Live alone in the mountains. She told me she was prepared for whatever happened. We met some people who told us that they are alive and well,” says Susan Reibuth. «We know these are difficult times, but we know we are getting there. “We will gather our people,” Buncombe County Police Chief Quentin Miller urged at a news conference.
Keys to the elections
North Carolina and Georgia are two key states in the upcoming presidential election on November 5. No one is guessing for the moment whether Helene will influence the results. Nobody even thinks about the elections, despite the two candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, having visited the devastated areas five times. What matters now are the homes and businesses destroyed by the storm and the mourning for lost neighbors. “It doesn’t matter what party you come from, we all need help”explains Nancy Crawford, a Republican who will vote for Harris because Trump’s statements on immigration deeply irritate her.
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