Beech Tree News Network

Hurricane Helene's death toll reached 200 on Thursday and could rise higher still, as searchers made their way toward the hardest to reach places in the mountains of western North Carolina, where the storm washed out roads and knocked out electricity, water and cellular service. Officials in Georgia and North Carolina added to their states' grim tallies, padding an overall count that has already made Helene the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. * * * Isolated and without electricity or phone service since Hurricane Helene inflicted devastation across the Southeast nearly a week ago, residents in the mountains of western North Carolina are relying on old-fashioned ways of communicating and coping. At the town square in Black Mountain, local leaders stood atop a picnic table shouting updates about when power might be restored. One woman took notes to pass along to her neighbors. Alongside a fencerow, a makeshift message board listed the names of people still missing. In other areas, mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes. Residents collected water from creeks and cooked over camp stoves. And across the region, people were looking after each other.