Just over two hours later, his wife, Dan, woke him in a panic. Heavy rain continued past 9am in Maggie Valley, and by 8.30am, floodwaters were rising fast. Their home was underwater up to the windows.
"Water was filling up, I would say, probably about an inch a minute," he said. "I mean, it was pouring in, from the toilets, the windows, both doors." Blindly stuffing clean laundry into a bag, he joined his wife and sevenyear-old son outside and somehow managed to start the Jeep, which was underwater to the bonnet. Now, the family is staying at an evacuation shelter with 30 other storm survivors, wondering what comes next.
Fesperman and his family are some of the lucky ones - they made it out with their lives. More than 225 people have now been confirmed dead, both in Florida where the hurricane first made landfall and across a five-state region in the southern Appalachians that includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. That number continues to rise as search and rescue efforts are ongoing. The disaster has destroyed towns, inflicted billions of dollars in damage, and prompted Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to visit the stricken region.
The Gulf Coast of Florida remained on alert this week as Hurricane Milton threatened to wreak more havoc in the areas affected by Helene.
The catastrophe in North Carolina unfolded in an area that was not meant to bear the brunt of Helene's power.
225
The number of deaths in Florida and a five-state region in the southern Appalachians, which could still rise
But the climate crisis has upended traditional models of hurricane season-generating storms that are faster, wetter and more powerful.
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