Desperation grows to find unaccounted for in wake of Helene

Our live coverage of Helene has moved here.

Stefanie’s Jeep was stuck after a landslide. Location: Little Switzerland, North Carolina

A St. Petersburg, Florida, resident was in North Carolina when Helene made landfall in Florida. The storm found her anyway.

For nearly five days, Stefanie Scarfia – a travel nurse who has been working in North Carolina – has been stranded at the place she’d been staying during her work assignment: The Big Lynn Lodge in Little Switzerland, North Carolina.

She was unable to go to work on Friday when her vehicle became stuck because of a landslide that happened that morning. she said.

Since being stranded at the lodge, Scarfia has offered her medical experience to anyone who may need it, she said.

Scarfia said the lodge’s owner, Hoyt Johnson, has taken care of everyone staying there or seeking refuge at the lodge. On Monday night, Scarfia was speaking with Johnson in the lobby with flashlights as the sole light source when someone came to the door seeking a hot shower, “and of course he let them,” Scarfia said.

Scarfia’s vehicle was dug out on Monday night, and she says she will attempt to drive into Asheville on Wednesday to head back to work.

More than 800 men incarcerated at a prison in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, were evacuated Tuesday to other prisons due to “long timeframes for water and power restoration,” officials said.

The men were transferred to seven prisons in and out of North Carolina, a news release from North Carolina Department of Adult Correction said. An online offender locator will be updated within 24 hours with information about where each relocated person has been temporary moved, the department said.

The department did not give an estimate of how long the inmates will be at their temporary locations.

More than 400 women also were evacuated from two prisons in western North Carolina Monday because of damage to water and power infrastructure, the department said.

Clearwater’s famous beach isn’t ready again for visitors or for people coming to gawk at the damage, officials in the Florida city said on social media Tuesday.

“The public bathing beach is closed and is filled with dirty sand and debris, and dead marine life is causing it to smell,” the city said on Facebook. There aren’t places to park because lots are being used for staging equipment and keeping sand piles.

Restrooms don’t have power. Roadways are still being cleared of sand, according to the city.

“The city of Clearwater asks you … please do not come to the beach to galivant and satisfy any sense of curiosity. If you do, this would be at the expense of our residents and businesses that have already lost so much,” the social media post says.

The roads to the barrier island are open and police checkpoints are gone, but traffic was “insane” Tuesday, according to one Facebook user commenting on the post.

CNN affiliate WFTS reports businesses on the island are gutted.

“Everything is lost,” Alex Greco, the general manager of Kings Pizza and Grill, said.

Greco said he planned to reopen after cleaning out the building, but in the meantime the business was going to do what it could, when it could, for the people working on the island. Right now, all he can do is give away drinks.

A mountaintop lodge near Little Switzerland, North Carolina, has become a safe haven for about 80 stranded residents and travelers on the Blue Ridge Parkway after floodwaters wreaked havoc on the state.

Hoyt Johnson, who has been the owner of Big Lynn Lodge for 14 years, said some people have been able to move out of the area, but more people continue to flow into the lodge seeking shelter. The 42-room inn, which is more than 100 years old, sits at an elevation of 3,100 feet and is located between Asheville and Boone off the Blue Ridge Parkway, according to the lodge’s website.

Johnson says they’ve had hot water, and a helicopter delivered a generator on Tuesday, but they don’t have much else. The lodge has also received a few helicopters full of supplies including water, food, diapers and medical supplies. Johnson said they are “slowly powering back up.”

The inn has about eight rooms set up for showers, and there’s a charging station for cell phones, Johnson said. He added that the lodge hopes to be serving two hot meals a day starting Wednesday.

Matthew Cloyd’s mother called Friday afternoon while Helene’s rain was battering East Tennessee. “Your dad’s in trouble,” she told him.

Based in Rockford, Illinois, Cloyd was confused, he recalled to CNN. “What do you mean dad’s in trouble?” he remembered asking her. He knew a hurricane was expected to hit the Southeast, but never thought it would greatly impact Jonesborough, Tennessee, a town nestled in the Appalachian region.

“Your father just called me and said it’s flooding really bad, the home is flooded,” Cloyd said his mother, Keli Cloyd, told him.

Matthew Cloyd said his father, Steven Cloyd, continued communicating with Matthew’s mother (Steven’s wife) through text messages and phone calls until he could no longer.

With this cell phone running low on power and flood waters continuing to rise, he grabbed the family dog, Orion, and got into his Jeep.

He told his wife that the floodwaters were so powerful that they caused his brother’s truck to float and smack into his Jeep, Matthew told CNN.

Kelly wrote back to say she was coming home. “No,” Steven texted. “Too deep Listen to me.”

And then, to Kelly’s surprise, Steven texted that he was about to go. “Jeep moving???” she asked. “Yes,” replied Steven, who added that he was about to run out of power.

“Please let me know when you are safe,” she wrote. “I love you so much it hurts.”

That night, Matthew and his younger brother drove from Rockford, Illinois, and arrived in Jonesborough on Saturday evening. Matthew said that it was close to impossible to get there since almost every bridge was washed out. Luckily, he found a functioning bridge free of debris that he was able to cross.

He linked up with his mom, and they searched for his dad. They found his Jeep stranded in a field about a quarter mile southwest of his home. But there was no sign of him or their dog Orion. The Jeep’s removable roof panel was taken off, so the family is hoping he got to safety.

After posting on social media about his missing dad and dog, a woman reached out to let them know that she had found Orion alive. The woman’s home was about 3 miles down the road, Matthew said.

Matthew used the word “helplessness” to describe how he and his family are feeling. They have reported their father missing to authorities and are posting on social media, hoping someone will message them to say he’s safe.

Matthew is asking anyone who lives along the Nolichucky River to check their backyards and surrounding areas to see if anyone has washed up along the banks. He stressed that it’s not just about finding his father but also the many others who are still missing.

He said he wants to eventually create a support group for all those affected. “I think right now we are the only people who know what each of us is going through,” Matthew said.

“It doesn’t feel real,” he added.

Power line poles lean after Hurricane Helene caused widespread damage to infrastructure in Lake Lure, North Carolina, on Tuesday.

Driving in western North Carolina remains dangerous after Helene hit the area and should be limited to storm response, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said Tuesday.

Closures remain on parts of interstates 40 and 26, and North Carolina drivers will not be able to get to Tennessee through these roads, the department said.

Also, in upper east Tennessee, “all roads … should be considered potentially hazardous, and motorists should avoid traveling in these areas unless seeking higher ground,” with many roads and bridges in the area compromised, a message on the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s website read Tuesday.

“The storm has caused historic destruction,” the Tennessee Department of Transportation said in a news release Tuesday. “We anticipate hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and months of closure.”

In North Carolina, other closures include: The Blue Ridge Road in Black Mountain, the US 176 at Camp Creek Road and the NC 9 Black Mountain, which should not be used except for hurricane response, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said.

Five bridges in Tennessee have been destroyed. Eight other bridges were also originally closed, but seven have now been reopened, the Tennessee Department of Transportation said.

World Central Kitchen, a relief organization that provides meals after humanitarian crises and weather disasters, said Tuesday it has served more than 64,000 meals in the aftermath of Helene.

Thirty-five food trucks are in operation, and the group is setting up field kitchens in Asheville, North Carolina, and Clearwater, Florida, according to an email from World Central Kitchen. Thirty-two of the trucks are in Georgia and Florida where more than 41,000 meals and 2,600 sandwiches have been served.

“These moments are hard for everybody, but every day I believe will get better, every day will be a little bit better than yesterday,” World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night from Asheville. “This (effort) is massive. We are going to places that by car will take us four and five and six hours. We’re using helicopters because we can get there in 10 or 20 minutes.”

The organization is working with 16 restaurant partners in North Carolina and Tennessee, according to the email. More than 23,000 meals have been served in Tennessee and North Carolina.

“We’ll be ramping our hot meal distribution up very shortly as our kitchens come online,” World Central Kitchen said in the email.

Andres said relief efforts at the Asheville airport, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard, “is something quite frankly I’ve never seen” in his 15 years running the organization.

Five water tankers capable of carrying 6,200 gallons were sent to western North Carolina because shortages caused by infrastructure damage, according to World Central Kitchen.

Arthur Blank, owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United, recently donated $2 million to the organization.

The death toll from Helene has risen to at least 162 across six states, according to CNN’s tally, after two more deaths were announced in Pinellas County, Florida.

Helene is already the second-deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland in the past 50 years, following Hurricane Katrina, which killed at least 1,833 people in 2005.

Here’s the breakdown of deaths from Helene by state:

Power crews work along Riverside Drive in the destroyed River Arts District in Asheville, North Carolina, on Tuesday, October 1.

More than 100,000 people in North Carolina’s Buncombe County, which includes the city of Asheville, still were without power on Tuesday, officials said at a news conference.

Search and rescue efforts are ongoing but continue to be challenged by the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, including bridge closures, no power, no water and “complete infrastructural failure,” Scott Dean, representing a FEMA National Urban Search & Rescue team helping in the area, said at the news conference Tuesday afternoon. “We are working very hard to find everybody who is missing.”

“In this county alone, it’s miles and miles of complete devastation,” Dean said. “There’s no place we’ve been where there hasn’t been severe flooding.”

Dean stressed local authorities responding to the tragedy are suffering the same impacts as their neighbors but are putting their neighbors first.

“You really got to understand the emotional part of this for those first responders in your communities,” he said. “They have the same issues at home but they’re not dealing with that so they can help their neighbors.”

Drinking water and ready-to-eat meals are being provided at four distribution centers, and residents are encouraged to bring empty containers to fill up with water, Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder said.

Pinder said the county is in discussions about using mobile morgues, which they have in inventory from the Covid-19 pandemic, for the deceased.

“A regional conversation has been happening around how do we treat our loved ones who have lost their life in this tragedy,” Pinder said.