There has been “life lost” in Tennessee, an emergency official in the state said on Saturday evening, making it the sixth state where people have been killed by Hurricane Helene, which ravaged the Southeast and left more than 50 dead this week.
Jimmy Erwin, the director of emergency management in Unicoi County, Tenn., fought back tears at a news conference as he said there had been some deaths in the storm. He declined to say how many people had died, and the police chief in Erwin, Tenn., Regan Tilson, said no bodies had yet been recovered.
Mr. Erwin said five or six people remained missing — a list winnowed significantly from more than 30 missing people earlier in the day — and that search and rescue teams would be looking for people along the Nolichucky River until nightfall. They would then pick back up first thing in the morning.
“We didn’t think we’d be here today,” Mr. Erwin said. Many residents are without water or power, and he said it could be a week before the electricity returns for some. The county also lost its water treatment plant, and he said anyone with water should boil their drinking water. Showers are being set up at a shelter at a local high school for residents to use.
Scenes of devastation abounded throughout the hilly, green Appalachian county of 17,000, particularly in and around Erwin, where a baptist church was surrounded by rubble, and a crumpled R.V. sat in a parking lot filled with debris. Downed trees lay on an impassable highway that cuts through the town.
Cody Scott, a Unicoi County commissioner, said he had never seen flooding in the county this bad. His brother had checked on the family’s farm on Friday afternoon and been shaken by what he saw.
“He couldn’t believe his eyes,” Mr. Scott said. “It’s devastated the community.”
He said he and his family were evaluating how many trucks, tractors, pumps and other farm equipment they had lost, as well as how much of the farmland was flooded, but that he was most worried about his constituents who had lost homes. He said he was holding out hope that those missing would be found.
“The longer it goes, in any type of search and rescue situation, that’s not what you want to hear,” he said.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
