On Monday, Mayor Patrick Fitzsimmons found himself at the epicenter of a disaster zone.

His town of Weaverville, North Carolina, had no power and electricity. Only one grocery store was operating, electricity pylons had fallen, the city's waterworks was flooded and people were without clean drinking water for four days, he told the BBC.

In larger Buncombe County, where Weaverville is located, at least 35 people were dead and 600 missing, a local said CBS News affiliate reported.

Mr Fitzsimmons said the county had set up a website where people could inquire about missing people. So far, officials have received 11,000 inquiries.

In the southeastern United States, millions of residents were plunged into chaos by Storm Helene. It hit Florida As a Category 4 hurricane, it tore through the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee on Thursday, leaving behind flooding, power outages and deaths.

In the days that followed, the true extent of the destruction became increasingly clear as residents returned home to survey the damage.

According to official figures, at least 116 people have died across the country.

One of those people was Madison Shaw's mother.

“Her last words to me were… 'I love you, take care of yourself.' “I’ll see you later,” the Anderson, South Carolina, resident told CBS News. “And I said, ‘I love you. We'll see you later too.'”

“I can’t even describe it,” Ms. Shaw told CBS News. “My mother was my best friend.”

A White House spokeswoman said Monday that two million people are currently without power. President Joe Biden called the storm “history-making.”

Some of the worst reports have come from North Carolina, where the state's governor, Roy Cooper, said communities had “vanished from the map” and dozens of rescue teams were deployed.

Buncombe County and the western corner of North Carolina remained some of Helene's worst Anger.

The county includes Asheville, a city in the Blue Ridge Mountains known for its arts and music scene. Helene inundated the city with floodwaters, driving people from their homes and leaving residents struggling for basic supplies. Trucks and trees crashed into buildings while downed power and telephone lines hung precariously over the streets.

“Houses were destroyed and leveled,” said 21-year-old Josh Griffith, who lives just outside Asheville in the town of Leicester.

“When it hit, we saw semi-trucks, storage boxes, dumpsters and propane tanks floating down the river, racing through parking lots and destroying everything in their path,” he told the BBC.

The apartment he shares with his fiancée is high on a hill and was protected from serious damage. But on Saturday afternoon, without power or food, they decided to flee and drive along rain-soaked roads into northeast Georgia.

At one point, Mr. Griffith and his partner had to drive straight through flood water, 6 inches of running water on top of 6 inches of mud. Emergency officials generally warn people not to drive in floodwaters of any depth during a storm.

“It was really scary,” he said. “Every time you drive over flowing water like that, there’s a fear that the tires might slip out from under you.”

They managed to spend the night in Georgia before heading back to North Carolina, armed with food, water and supplies for their neighbors in Buncombe.

“People are just scrambling to get all the resources they can,” he said.

Buncombe County officials opened four water distribution sites throughout the county on Monday.

Last week, before Helene arrived, 28-year-old Jesse Ross wondered whether the storm would be as destructive as some had predicted.

“It turned out it was huge,” he said.

Mr. Ross witnessed a “flood of water” rushing through his town of Waynesville, North Carolina, on Friday. The bridges were uncrossable. He couldn't contact anyone. His family was safe, he told the BBC, but they spent several days under boil water warnings.

As residents begin to pick up the pieces, their future remains uncertain.

Grayson Barnette, a lifelong resident who grew up in Lenoir, North Carolina, and now lives nearby, said many of the residents have lived in these storm-ravaged communities their entire lives.

“Some people are just poor and have lived in the same place for generations,” he said. “For a lot of people, that was just unconscionable.”

Mr Barnette feared that residents' close ties to their communities may have led some to stay and ride out the storm despite warnings.

“Whole communities have just been wiped out,” Mr. Barnette said. “And people may or may not come back.”

Additional reporting by Holly Honderich