PERRY: North Carolina officials pledged to get more water and other supplies to flood-stricken areas by Monday after Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction across the US Southeast and the death toll from the storm rose to nearly 100.
At least 91 people across several states were killed. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed.
Gov. Roy Cooper predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city of Asheville. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder pledged that she would have food and water to the city by Monday.
“We hear you. We need food and we need water,” Pinder said on a Sunday call with reporters. “My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we’ve been working with every single organization that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close.”
Officials warned that rebuilding from the widespread loss of homes and property would be lengthy and difficult. The storm upended life throughout the Southeast. Deaths also were reported in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia.
Cooper implored residents in western North Carolina to avoid travel, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams spread throughout the region in search of stranded people.
One rescue effort involved saving 41 people north of Asheville. Another mission focused on saving a single infant. The teams found people through both 911 calls and social media messages, North Carolina National Guard Adjutant General Todd Hunt said.
President Joe Biden described the impact of the storm as “stunning” and said he would visit the area this week as long as it does not disrupt rescues or recovery work.
In a brief exchange with reporters, he described the impact of the storm as “stunning” and said that the administration is giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm.
Hurricane Helene roared ashore late Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph (225 kph) winds. A weakened Helene quickly moved through Georgia, then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded creeks and rivers and strained dams.
There have been hundreds of water rescues, including in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday.
More than 2 million homeowners and other utility customers were still without power Sunday night. South Carolina had the most outages and Gov. Henry McMaster asked for patience as crews dealt with widespread snapped power poles.
“We want people to remain calm. Help is on the way, it is just going to take time,” McMaster told reporters outside the airport in Aiken County.
Begging for help in North Carolina as that help is slow to arrive
The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.
Jessica Drye Turner in Texas had begged for someone to rescue her family members stranded on their rooftop in Asheville amid rising floodwaters. “They are watching 18-wheelers and cars floating by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post on Friday.
But in a follow-up message Saturday, Turner said help had not arrived in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her 6-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and the three drowned.
“I cannot convey in words the sorrow, heartbreak and devastation my sisters and I are going through,” she wrote.
The state was sending water supplies and other items toward Buncombe County and Asheville, but mudslides blocking Interstate 40 and other highways prevented supplies from making it. The county’s own water supplies were on the other side of the Swannanoa River, away from where most of the 270,000 people in Buncombe County live, officials said.
Law enforcement was making plans to send officers to places that still had water, food or gas because of reports of arguments and threats of violence, the county sheriff said.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell toured south Georgia on Sunday and planned to be in North Carolina Monday.
“It’s still very much an active search and rescue mission” in western North Carolina, Criswell said. “And we know that there’s many communities that are cut off just because of the geography” of the mountains, where damage to roads and bridges have cut off certain areas.
Biden on Saturday pledged federal government help for Helene’s “overwhelming” devastation. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.
Storm-battered Florida digs out, residents gather for church
In Florida’s Big Bend, some lost nearly everything they own. With sanctuaries still darkened as of Sunday morning, some churches canceled regular services while others like Faith Baptist Church in Perry opted to worship outside.
Standing water and tree debris still covers the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. The church called on parishioners to come “pray for our community” in a message posted to the congregation’s Facebook page.
“We have power. We don’t have electricity,” Immaculate Conception Catholic Church parishioner Marie Ruttinger said. “Our God has power. That’s for sure.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it looked “like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air.
In eastern Georgia near the border with South Carolina, officials notified Augusta residents Sunday morning that water service would be shut off for 24 to 48 hours in the city and surrounding Richmond County.
A news release said trash and debris from the storm “blocked our ability to pump water.” Officials were distributing bottled water.
With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.
Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.
Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes within hours.
New tropical depression in Atlantic could become strong hurricane, forecasters say
A new tropical depression in the eastern Atlantic Ocean could become a “formidable hurricane” later this week, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday. The depression had sustained 35 mph (55kph) winds and was located about 630 miles (1,015 kilometers) west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, the center said. It could become a hurricane by Wednesday.
Supplies are rushed to North Carolina communities left isolated after Helene
https://arab.news/my7xj
Supplies are rushed to North Carolina communities left isolated after Helene
Trump says Australia will grant asylum to Iran women footballers
- Presenter on Iranian state TV had branded the players “wartime traitors” after they stood motionless during the anthem
MIAMI: US President Donald Trump said Monday that Australia had agreed to grant asylum to some of Iran’s visiting women’s football team, amid fears they could face retaliation back home for not singing the national anthem before a match.
The gesture ahead of the team’s Asian Cup match against South Korea last week was seen by many as an act of defiance against the Islamic republic just two days after the United States and Israel attacked it.
“I just spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, of Australia, concerning the Iranian National Women’s Soccer Team. He’s on it! Five have already been taken care of,” Trump said Monday on his Truth Social network, less than two hours after an initial post urging Australia to take them in.
Trump added that “some, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don’t return.”
There was no immediate comment from the Australian government, which has so far declined to say whether it could offer the players asylum.
Asked about their case on Sunday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia “stands in solidarity” with the people of Iran.
The son of Iran’s late shah, US-based Reza Pahlavi, warned on Monday that the refusal to sing the anthem could have “dire consequences,” and urged Australia to offer the team protection.
Trump then weighed in, pressing Albanese to “give ASYLUM” to the team and adding: “The US will take them if you won’t.”
“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed,” the US leader said on Truth Social.
Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarchy, has billed himself as the man to lead a democratic transition to a secular Iran as the theocratic regime fights to survive.
Politicians, human rights activists and even “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling have also called for the team to be offered official protection.
“Please, protect these young women,” Rowling said in a post on social media.
‘Save our girls’
A presenter on Iranian state TV had branded the players “wartime traitors” after they stood motionless during the anthem before their match against South Korea.
In subsequent games, the players saluted and sang.
Crowds gathered outside the Gold Coast stadium where the side played their last match over the weekend, banging drums and shouting “regime change for Iran.”
They then surrounded the Iranian team bus, chanting “let them go” and “save our girls.”
On Monday, an AFP journalist saw members of the team speaking on phones from their balcony of their hotel.
Asked about the possibility of granted asylum, a spokesperson for Australia’s Home Affairs department told AFP earlier it “cannot comment on the circumstances of individuals.”
Amnesty International campaigner Zaki Haidari said they faced persecution, or worse, if they were sent home.
“Some of these team members probably have had their families already threatened,” Haidari told AFP.
“Them going back... who knows what sort of punishment they will receive?“
Despite being heavily monitored, the side would have a “small window of opportunity” to seek asylum at the airport, he said.
Iran’s embassy in Australia did not respond to a request for comment.
