A North Carolina man hiked 11 miles and 2,200 ft through Hurricane Helene devastation to reach his parents.
Sam Perkins grew concerned on Saturday morning as he had not hearing from his parents after Helene tore through western parts of the state . As he grew more worried, Perkins attempted to drive to check on his parents who live in a mountain village between Spruce Pine and Little Switzerland.
However, as he tried to reach the isolated community, he soon realised Helene had downed trees and ripped roads apart - making the journey by car impossible. But, Sam was not letting the aftermath stop him checking on his parents, so he ditched his car and opted to hike the rest of the way.
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He told CNN : "I tried every road route I could, but the roads, no matter where you go, are blocked by landslides or failures. I can’t tell you how many failing roads and deep mudslides I had to cross, how many fallen trees I had to take off my backpack for and navigate through."
Mark hiked for almost four hours through the destruction before finally reaching his parents who had been completely cut off from all resources. He said: “I have never been so relieved to see anyone OK,” Perkins told CNN, adding his parents are in their 70s, but pretty resourceful people. I just hugged them, cried, filled them in on all the news they were missing … walked around the property, helped them decide how to approach some challenges."
The storm has been blamed for at least 155 deaths across five states, including 23 people in South Carolina and 11 in Florida. But the death toll is sure to rise as authorities continue to take stock of Helene's devastation. In hard-hit Buncombe County, North Carolina, where Asheville is located, authorities said they know people died but aren't announcing anything because communication outages haven't allowed them to reach relatives of the victims.
The hurricane roared ashore Thursday night as a Category 4 storm on Florida's Gulf Coast and then quickly moved Friday through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.
President Joe Biden was briefed on Saturday evening by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall on the devastating impact Hurricane Helene wrought on the southeast, according to the White House.
The briefing came after Criswell on Saturday visited the hard-hit Big Bend community in Florida. She is set to visit Georgia on Sunday and North Carolina on Monday to get a first-hand look at the damage.
Biden, according to the White House, directed Criswell and Sherwood-Randall to focus on how the administration "can speed support" to communities, including the immediate deployment of additional search and rescue teams into North Carolina.
The US President said in a statement Saturday he was "deeply saddened" by the loss of life and devastation from Helene and that he and first lady Jill Biden were praying for the families. Biden was being regularly briefed by his team on the storm, and the leader of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was in the region assessing the damage, along with local officials.
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