Search for victims of Hurricane Helene moves into second week [Video]

THE SEARCH FOR victims of Hurricane Helene has moved into its second week today, as exhausted rescue crews and volunteers continued to work long days — navigating past washed out roads, downed power lines and mudslides — to reach the isolated and the missing.

“We know these are hard times, but please know we’re coming,” Sheriff Quentin Miller of Buncombe County, North Carolina, said at a Thursday evening press briefing.

“We’re coming to get you. We’re coming to pick up our people.”

With at least 215 killed, Helene is already the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland US since Katrina in 2005, and dozens or possibly hundreds of people are still unaccounted for.

In Buncombe County alone, 72 people had been confirmed dead as of Thursday evening, Miller said. Buncombe includes the tourist hub of Asheville, the region’s most populous city. Still, the sheriff holds out hope that many of …