The death toll from Hurricane Helen has risen to 182, but hundreds remain missing and this number is expected to rise.
This staggering number makes Helen the deadliest storm since 2005's Hurricane Katrina, which hit the United States with 1,392 deaths, covering six southern states.
North Carolina was one of the states hardest hit by severe flooding that swept away entire communities, killing 91 people. In South Carolina, 36 people have died. There are 25 in Georgia. Florida's 19th loss. Tennessee has nine losses. By the numbers, Virginia has lost two. Compiled by CNN.
The dead included many first responders and civil servants who remained at their posts in the face of the dangers of the storm.
South Carolina firefighters Chad Thatcher, 53, and Landon Boddy, 18, died Friday when a tree fell on their engine while responding to a fire in the small town of Saluda.
Sheriff's Capt. Michelle Quintero, who ran the Madison County Jail in Florida, which was in the path of the storm, died Sunday when a dam burst and she was swept away by floodwaters. Quintero had arrived at the prison through Helen's fallout and was caring for inmates when the tragedy occurred.
North Carolina Deputy Jim Rau was on his lunch break while working as a security guard at a Macon County courthouse when he was swept away by floodwaters.
Vernon Davis, who worked as a firefighter for 30 years, was killed Friday when a tree fell on the truck he was helping clear a road in Blackshear County. According to First Coast News.
And in East Tennessee, a police K-9 named Scotty goes missing after being swept away by a sudden flood.
However, hundreds of people remain missing, suggesting the death toll will continue to rise.
At least 600 people were believed to be missing as of Tuesday in Buncombe County, North Carolina alone, and much of the mountainous region remains cut off from the outside world, with roads and bridges physically obliterated and widespread power outages. Communication has also become almost impossible. .
“There are reports of up to 600 people missing and unreachable,” President Biden said Monday. “They are alive, just as God wanted them to be.”
The situation is much the same throughout the South, particularly in the Appalachian regions of Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.
Even after bodies are no longer found in the wreckage, the death toll from the storm could continue to rise for years to come, with one study suggesting the death toll could reach into the thousands.
A powerful storm like Hurricane Helen could directly lead to between 7,000 and 11,000 deaths over the next 15 years, one report said. Research published in Nature on wednesday.
The study examined mortality after 501 tropical cyclones between 1930 and 1950 and found that income losses and health problems directly attributable to the storms accounted for an “undocumented mortality burden.” was found to be responsible for more than 5.1% of all deaths on the U.S. Atlantic Coast. .
Other than Katrina, Helen's death toll is unmatched in more than half a century of hurricanes. The only storm that claimed more lives at the time was Hurricane Camille in 1969, which killed 256 people.
