“It looks like a 250-mile-wide tornado hit,” said Kemp, who monitored the storm’s path from the air. “And to see the level of destruction a hurricane can cause so far from the Florida line is unprecedented.”

Kemp said there have been nearly 300 boil water warnings and over 500 people in shelters across the state because of Helene. On Monday, Kemp also authorized the deployment of an additional 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops, bringing the total to 2,500 troops supporting Helene.

According to poweroutage.us, over 560,000 people in Georgia were still without power as of Monday afternoon. Kemp said thousands of linemen are vying to restore power to customers across the state.

Hundreds of traffic lights remain out and many places in Georgia still lack cell service and water.

“We know people are frustrated. We know they are tired. We know they need power back and they need resources, and we are working around the clock to ensure that happens,” Kemp said.

The governor spoke with President Joe Biden on Sunday about local recovery efforts.

Supplies are being delivered to isolated, flood-affected areas in North Carolina

Deaths have also been reported in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia. And a North Carolina county that includes the mountain town of Asheville reported 30 deaths.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper predicted the death toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency responders reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.

Officials in western North Carolina rushed Monday to get more water, food and other supplies to flood-hit areas without power and cell service.

Supplies were airlifted to the region surrounding the isolated city of Asheville. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder promised she would provide the town with food and water by Monday.

“We hear you. We need food and we need water,” Pinder said in a Sunday call with reporters. “My staff has made every possible request for assistance to the state and we have worked with every single organization that has contacted us. I promise you that we are very close.”

Asheville's water system was severely damaged. Residents walked with buckets to a stream to collect water to flush toilets, carefully watching their steps where three days earlier a wall of water had swept away all the trees and soil, leaving only mud.

Neighbors shared food and water and comforted each other. “This is the blessing so far,” Sommerville Johnston said outside her home.

Officials warned that rebuilding would be long and difficult after widespread loss of homes and property. The storm upended life across the Southeast.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Monday that hundreds of roads were closed in western North Carolina and that shelters across the area were housing more than 1,000 people.

Cooper urged residents in western North Carolina to avoid travel, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search parties spread across the entire region in search of stranded people.

41 people were saved in a rescue operation north of Asheville. Another mission focused on rescuing a single infant. Teams found people through both 911 calls and social media messages, said Todd Hunt, adjutant general for the North Carolina National Guard.

Video showed a mass of debris, including overturned pontoon boats and splintered wooden boardwalks, covering the surface of Lake Lure, a scenic spot nestled among the mountains outside Asheville.

President Joe Biden described the storm's impact as “amazing” and said he would visit the area this week as long as it did not affect rescue or recovery efforts. In a brief exchange with reporters, he said the administration was giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm.

Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday in the Big Bend region of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 140 mph (225 km/h). A weakened Helen moved quickly through Georgia and then inundated the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded streams and rivers and overwhelmed dams.

There have been hundreds of water rescues, including in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from the roof of a hospital on Friday.

More than two million homeowners and other utility customers were still without power Sunday night. South Carolina had the most outages and Gov. Henry McMaster asked for patience as crews struggled with widespread broken power poles.

“We want people to stay calm. Help is on the way, it will just take time,” McMaster told reporters outside the Aiken County airport.

I am asking for help in North Carolina as this help is slow to arrive

The storm triggered the worst flooding in North Carolina in a century. One community, Spruce Pine, was flooded with more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain Tuesday through Saturday.

Jessica Drye Turner of Texas had pleaded for someone to rescue her family members who were stranded on their roof in Asheville amid rising floodwaters. “They are watching 18-wheelers and cars go by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post Friday.

But in a follow-up message Saturday, Turner said help did not arrive in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her 6-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and the three drowned.

“I cannot express in words the sadness, heartache and devastation my sisters and I are going through,” she wrote.

The state sent water supplies and other goods to Buncombe County and Asheville, but mudslides that blocked Interstate 40 and other highways prevented the supplies from getting there. The county's own water supplies were located across the Swannanoa River, away from where most of Buncombe County's 270,000 people live, officials said.

Law enforcement planned to send officers to locations where there was still water, food or gas because there were reports of arguments and threats of violence, the county sheriff said.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell traveled through southern Georgia on Sunday and planned to be in North Carolina on Monday.

“It is still an active search and rescue mission” in western North Carolina, Criswell said. “And we know that there are many communities that are cut off just because of the geography” of the mountains, where damage to roads and bridges has cut off certain areas.

Biden promised federal government help for Helene's “overwhelming” devastation on Saturday. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina and made federal funding available for affected individuals.

Storm-hit Florida is dug up and residents gather for church

In Florida's Big Bend, some lost almost everything they owned. Some churches canceled their regular services on Sunday, while others, like Faith Baptist Church in Perry, opted to hold services outdoors.
Standing water and tree debris still cover the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. In a message posted on the church's Facebook page, the church called on parishioners to “pray for our community.”

“We have power. We have no electricity,” said Marie Ruttinger, a parishioner at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. “Our God has power. That’s for sure.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday it “looked like a bomb exploded” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air.

In eastern Georgia, near the South Carolina border, officials told Augusta residents Sunday morning that water service would be interrupted for 24 to 48 hours because trash and debris blocked the ability to pump water.

With at least 25 deaths in South Carolina, Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.

Moody's Analytics expects property damage to range from $15 billion to $26 billion.

Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow such storms to thrive. In the warmer waters they intensify quickly, sometimes turning into strong cyclones within a few hours.

Tropical Storm Kirk is forming in the Atlantic and could become a strong hurricane

Tropical Storm Kirk formed in the eastern Atlantic on Monday and is expected to become a “large and strong hurricane” by Tuesday night or Wednesday, the US National Hurricane Center said. The storm was located about 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) west of the Cabo Verde Islands, with maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour (70 km/h). There were no coast guards or warnings and the storm system posed no threat to the country.

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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine, and Payne reported from Perry, Florida. Haya Panjwani in Washington, Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed.

WABE's Patrick Saunders and Rahul Bali contributed to this report.