Ca­dav­er dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and de­bris in the moun­tains of west­ern North Car­oli­na on Tues­day look­ing for vic­tims of Hur­ri­cane He­lene, days af­ter the storm carved a dead­ly and de­struc­tive path through the South­east.

With He­lene’s death toll near­ing 160, searchers fanned out, us­ing he­li­copters to get past washed-out bridges and hik­ing through wilder­ness to reach iso­lat­ed homes.

The storm, which was one of the dead­liest in U.S. his­to­ry, knocked out pow­er and cel­lu­lar ser­vice in some towns and cities, leav­ing many peo­ple frus­trat­ed, hot and in­creas­ing­ly wor­ried days in­to the or­deal. Some cooked food on char­coal grills or hiked to high ground in the hopes of find­ing a sig­nal to call loved ones.

“Com­mu­ni­ties were wiped off the map,” North Car­oli­na’s gov­er­nor, Roy Coop­er, said at a news con­fer­ence Tues­day.

The dev­as­ta­tion was es­pe­cial­ly bad in the Blue Ridge Moun­tains, where at least 57 peo­ple died in and around Asheville, a tourism haven known for its art gal­leries, brew­eries and out­door ac­tiv­i­ties.

In Swan­nanoa, a small com­mu­ni­ty out­side Asheville, re­ced­ing flood­wa­ters re­vealed cars stacked on top of oth­ers and trail­er homes that had float­ed away dur­ing the storm. Roads were caked with mud and de­bris and pock­marked by sink­holes.

Cliff Stew­art sur­vived two feet of wa­ter that poured in­to his home, top­ping the wheels on his wheel­chair and send­ing his med­i­cine bot­tles float­ing from room to room. Left with­out elec­tric­i­ty and re­liant on food drop-offs from friends, he has re­fused of­fers to help him leave.

“Where am I go­ing to go?” the Ma­rine Corps vet­er­an said Tues­day. “This is all I’ve got. I just don’t want to give it up, be­cause what am I go­ing to do? Be home­less? I’d rather die right here than live home­less.”

Ex­haust­ed emer­gency crews worked around the clock to clear roads, re­store pow­er and phone ser­vice, and reach those still strand­ed by the storm, which killed at least 159 peo­ple in six states, in­clud­ing many who were hit by falling trees or trapped in flood­ed cars and homes. Near­ly half of the deaths were in North Car­oli­na, while dozens of oth­ers were in South Car­oli­na and Geor­gia.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, who is set to sur­vey the dev­as­ta­tion in North and South Car­oli­na Wednes­day, es­ti­mat­ed the re­cov­ery could cost bil­lions.

“We have to jump start this re­cov­ery process,” he said Tues­day. “Peo­ple are scared to death. This is ur­gent.”

More than 150,000 house­holds have reg­is­tered for as­sis­tance with the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, and that num­ber is ex­pect­ed to rise rapid­ly in the com­ing days, said Frank Ma­tran­ga, an agency rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

Near­ly 2 mil­lion ready-to-eat meals and more than a mil­lion liters of wa­ter have been sent to the hard­est-hit ar­eas, he said.

Search crews around Asheville first checked on the most vul­ner­a­ble.

“We’ve been go­ing door to door, mak­ing sure that we can put eyes on peo­ple and see if they’re safe,” said Avril Pin­der, the coun­ty man­ag­er for Bun­combe Coun­ty, which in­cludes Asheville. “We know that there are places that are still hard to ac­cess.”

How some of the hard­est-hit ar­eas are cop­ing

The storm un­leashed the worst flood­ing in a cen­tu­ry in North Car­oli­na, dump­ing more than an es­ti­mat­ed 2 feet (61 cen­time­ters) of rain in places.

Coop­er said Tues­day that more than two dozen wa­ter plants re­mained closed and were not pro­duc­ing wa­ter.

Ac­tive-du­ty U.S. mil­i­tary units may be need­ed to as­sist the long-term re­cov­ery, he said, adding that Biden had giv­en “the green light” to mo­bi­liz­ing mil­i­tary as­sets in the near fu­ture.

A sec­tion of one of the re­gion’s main ar­ter­ies, In­ter­state 40, re­opened Tues­day af­ter a mud­slide was cleared, but a col­lapsed stretch near North Car­oli­na’s bor­der with Ten­nessee re­mained closed.

Joey Hop­kins, North Car­oli­na’s sec­re­tary of trans­porta­tion, asked peo­ple to stay off the roads so crews can get in­to the area.

Res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers wore masks and gloves while clear­ing de­bris Tues­day in Hot Springs, where al­most every build­ing along the tiny town’s main street was heav­i­ly dam­aged.

Sarah Cal­loway, who owns the deli and gourmet gro­cery Vaste Riv­iere Pro­vi­sions, said the storm ar­rived in town fright­en­ing­ly quick­ly.

“This is an amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and we’re just go­ing to need fi­nan­cial and man­pow­er sup­port to lit­er­al­ly dig out,” she said. “This is such a gem here on the Ap­palachi­an Trail and in these beau­ti­ful moun­tains.”

He­lene blew ashore in Flori­da late Thurs­day as a Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane and up­end­ed life through­out the South­east, where deaths were al­so re­port­ed in Flori­da, Ten­nessee and Vir­ginia. Of­fi­cials warned that re­build­ing would be long and dif­fi­cult.

Mo­bile ser­vice knocked out

The wide­spread dam­age and out­ages af­fect­ing key com­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture left many peo­ple with­out sta­ble ac­cess to the in­ter­net and cel­lu­lar ser­vice, the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion said.

Teams from Ver­i­zon were work­ing to re­pair downed cell tow­ers, dam­aged fiber ca­bles and pro­vide al­ter­na­tive forms of con­nec­tiv­i­ty across the re­gion, the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment.

AT&T, mean­while, said it launched “one of the largest mo­bi­liza­tions of our dis­as­ter re­cov­ery as­sets for emer­gency con­nec­tiv­i­ty sup­port.”

The ef­forts to re­store ser­vice was made more chal­leng­ing by the re­gion’s ter­rain and spread-out pop­u­la­tion, said David Zumwalt, pres­i­dent and CEO of the As­so­ci­a­tion for Broad­band With­out Bound­aries.

Why west­ern North Car­oli­na was hit so hard

Rem­nants of He­lene en­coun­tered the high­er el­e­va­tions and cool­er air of the Ap­palachi­an Moun­tains, caus­ing even more rain to fall.

Asheville and many sur­round­ing moun­tain towns were built in val­leys, leav­ing them es­pe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to rain and flood­ing. Plus, the ground al­ready was sat­u­rat­ed be­fore He­lene ar­rived, said Chris­ti­aan Pat­ter­son, a me­te­o­rol­o­gist with the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice.

Cli­mate change has ex­ac­er­bat­ed con­di­tions that al­low such storms to thrive, rapid­ly in­ten­si­fy­ing in warm­ing wa­ters and turn­ing in­to pow­er­ful cy­clones, some­times with­in hours.

De­struc­tion from Flori­da to Vir­ginia

Across Geor­gia, He­lene’s in­land path knocked out pow­er and shat­tered lives from Val­dos­ta to Au­gus­ta, where a line of cars wait­ing to get wa­ter Tues­day stretched at least a half-mile (0.8 kilo­me­ters) down the road.

“It’s been rough,” said Kristie Nel­son, who had no idea when her elec­tric­i­ty would be re­stored. “I’m just dy­ing for a hot show­er.”

Ten­nessee Gov. Bill Lee flew to the east­ern part of that state to sur­vey dam­age on Tues­day. Dur­ing a stop while look­ing at what re­mained of a de­mol­ished high school, res­i­dents said the gov­er­nor and his en­tourage were the first help they had seen since the storm hit.

“Where has every­one been? We have been here alone,” one frus­trat­ed lo­cal said.

With at least 36 killed in South Car­oli­na, He­lene passed the 35 peo­ple who were killed in the state af­ter Hur­ri­cane Hugo made land­fall north of Charleston in 1989.

Kirk be­comes a hur­ri­cane and could strength­en in­to a ma­jor storm

Kirk on Tues­day be­came a hur­ri­cane in the east­ern At­lantic Ocean. The storm could strength­en in­to a ma­jor hur­ri­cane by Thurs­day, the U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said. The storm was about 1070 miles (1,720 kilo­me­ters) west of the Cabo Verde Is­land with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 75 mph (120 kph). There were no coastal watch­es or warn­ings in ef­fect, and the storm sys­tem was not yet deemed a threat to land.

Con­tribut­ing to this re­port were As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Gary D. Robert­son in Raleigh; Kim­ber­lee Krue­si in Hamp­ton, Ten­nessee; Jef­frey Collins in Au­gus­ta, Geor­gia; John Ra­by in Charleston, West Vir­ginia; Re­bec­ca San­tana in New Or­leans; Shawn Chen in New York; Colleen Long in Wash­ing­ton and John Seew­er in Tole­do, Ohio.

By  ERIK VER­DUZ­CO and JEFF AMY

SWAN­NANOA, N.C. (AP)