A week after Helene, western N.C. faces lack of basic needs and uncertain future

A week after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the Southeast, residents in some states are still trying to get the very basics. More than 200 are confirmed dead and hundreds remain unaccounted for. That makes it the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. William Brangham reports.
Amna Nawaz:
A week after Hurricane Helene devastated part of the state, residents in some states are still trying to get the very basics they need, water, food and power. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for, and so far more than 200 have died. That makes it the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina back in 2005.
We spoke with residents in some of the hardest-hit areas around Asheville and the surrounding towns in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee about what life looks like now.
William Brangham:
For the past week, tens of thousands of people like Emily Bigelow have had to learn how to live without modern plumbing. Now forced to rely on creek water, she carries it by hand back to her house to make her toilet run.
Emily Bigelow, Asheville, North Carolina, Resident:
A full bucket is about two flushes. They are saying probably weeks before we can get water again, which you take for granted being able to flush a toilet.
William Brangham:
For three years, Bigelow and her partner, Matt Capello (ph), have shared this home in Asheville, North Carolina, in the quiet foothills of the blue ridge mountains.
But last Friday morning, they woke to a community transformed overnight. In just three days, Hurricane Helene dumped over 17 inches of rain onto this surrounding area, part of the trillions of gallons of water that Helene released.
In North Carolina, it triggered catastrophic floods. More than 500 miles away from Florida, where Helene came ashore.
Emily Bigelow:
I don’t know of anyone in the community in Asheville or the surrounding areas that were ready for this.
William Brangham:
Over 70 people have been confirmed dead in this county alone. It’s a death toll that’s expected to rise because search-and-rescue teams from around the nation are still looking for hundreds of missing people here and in neighboring communities.
Emily Bigelow:
For the first couple of days, I just kind of felt paralyzed. I haven’t walked over to look at the bad areas of the city because I just don’t think I can handle it.
William Brangham:
Bigelow is coping by doing what so many residents here are doing, helping others, like 82-year-old Maude Adams (ph).
Emily Bigelow:
It’s helped me to just be able to help people, you know. Trauma really brings people together.
Maude Adams, Asheville, North Carolina, Resident:
It pulled it loose and tore off the end, the roof.
William Brangham:
Adams has lived here for more than 40 years.
Maude Adams:
That’s the bathroom window.
William Brangham:
But she hasn’t left in a week since the storm knocked this massive tree onto her front porch. Adams says she’s been through floods before, but nothing like this.
Maude Adams:
This time, I have never heard as bad as it is now, nope, in your — in this one place since ’81.
William Brangham:
Like so many across this region, she has no power, no water, no access to the outside world, except a transistor radio.
Her sister died this year and she says the isolation coupled with the devastation has been tough. But, like so many, she’s thinking of others.
Maude Adams:
You just think about other people. I mean, they got it a lot worse than I have. At least I have got my home yet.
William Brangham:
Just across the border, in Eastern Tennessee, Reverend Brooks Ramsey has been collecting donations to send out to the hard-hit towns nearby, like Newport and Del Rio.
Woman:
This is the first truck of the day and there are many more packages.
Rev. Brooks Ramsey, Sevierville, Tennessee, Resident:
Right before I came on with you, the Newport rescue squad backed up a 16 foot trailer to our driveway and we loaded them up with everything from soup to feminine hygiene products, toilet paper, baby formula. If you name it, we had it.
William Brangham:
He’s determined to not let the nation forget what’s unfolding here.
Rev. Brooks Ramsey:
These people are easily forgotten. It’s very easily — to forget us. And then there’s everything going on in the world too. So there’s all these distractions and people just get lost in the shuffle.
William Brangham:
Among those lost in the shuffle, says Ramsey, is his family friend, Sibrina Barnett, who was working in Erwin, Tennessee, when floodwaters swept through the town.
Rev. Brooks Ramsey:
She was loaded up on a flatbed and with an indeterminate number of people, it got swept away by the water. He was loaded up on a flat bed and with an indeterminate number of people, it got swept away by the water. And Sibrina is still missing.
William Brangham:
Earlier this week, President Biden toured the devastation by air, ordering 1,000 active-duty troops from nearby Fort Liberty to assist in the recovery effort.
He called the storm, which intensified rapidly the moment it hit the unseasonably warm Gulf waters, a clear warning about climate change.
Joe Biden, President of the United States: Nobody can deny the impact of climate crisis anymore. At least I hope they don’t. They must be brain-dead if they do.
William Brangham:
Back in Asheville, residents like Emily Bigelow agree.
Emily Bigelow:
This is definitely a huge wakeup call. Climate change is real. This kind of devastation really sends things home on where we’re at now, how fast things are changing and how different life is going to look.
Maude Adams:
Look how big that thing is out yonder at that roof, where it come across the fence.
William Brangham:
But for now, there are no easy answers, just communities relying on each other as they start on the very long path to rebuilding.
For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m William Brangham.