National

‘Hold onto that hope’: Urgent search for missing after Helene continues

Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on October 2, 2024

(NEW YORK) — At least 6,300 National Guard troops are racing to get aid to those in need — along with an army of volunteers — in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as the death toll jumped to more than 160 across six states on Wednesday morning, with hundreds of people still reported missing.

New images from storm-ravaged areas are continuing to emerge on Wednesday in places like Erwin, Tennessee, where ambulances could be seen being towed away near where dozens of people were rescued from a roof of a hospital with dump trucks filled with trees and debris located nearby.

Elsewhere, in North Carolina, dramatic dashcam footage captured the moment a couple narrowly missed being swept up in a landslide in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with those landslides and flooding washing roads and bridges away and making it all but impossible to get access to some of the hardest hit areas.

“We have one suitcase, really,” North Carolina resident and Hurricane Helene survivor, Aaron Smith, told ABC News. “And so trying to figure out four people and a dog out of one suitcase, it’s the most, it’s just surreal.”

Another family in Hendersonville, North Carolina, became completely surrounded by floodwater, waiting for help in chest-high water and unable to get to dry land.

The Mirandas have been forced to use creek water to wash their clothes and have even had to find ice to keep insulin cold in coolers.

Jessica Meidinger said that she knows a witness who saw a neighbor’s house floating away down a river with them still inside — Rod Ashby was rescued Tuesday night but his wife, Kim, is still missing.

“Losing your most loved one when you had her in your arms and now you don’t there’s I don’t imagine there’s much that can compare to that,” Meidinger said. “She’s strong, she’s a breast cancer survivor. It’s hard not to hold on to that hope.”