Hundreds remain unaccounted for following devastating flooding that ravaged towns, destroyed roads, and cut off power to over a million homes in the southeastern United States.
The death toll has steadily increased since Hurricane Helene, later downgraded to a tropical storm, struck the region.
As of Tuesday, 135 fatalities have been confirmed across six states, and this number is expected to rise.
In western North Carolina, where at least 40 of the deaths occurred, 300 roads are still closed, complicating recovery efforts and the delivery of essential supplies like food and water.
Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, has been particularly hard-hit. “We have biblical devastation,” Ryan Cole, an emergency official in the county, told the BBC on Monday. “This is the most significant natural disaster that any one of us has ever seen.”
President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit North Carolina on Wednesday, with plans to tour Georgia and Florida soon after to assess damage there.
Vice President Kamala Harris has also changed her plans, canceling a previously scheduled campaign appearance in Pennsylvania to visit Georgia and survey storm damage.
Although floodwaters have begun to recede in some areas, large portions of North Carolina remain immobilized by the storm’s aftermath.
The extreme weather has also led to the closure of quartz mines in Spruce Pine, located about an hour northeast of Asheville, which is home to the world’s largest source of high-purity quartz.
This quartz is essential for semiconductor production, a critical component in modern devices like laptops and smartphones.
“It does boggle the mind a bit to consider that inside nearly every cell phone and computer chip you’ll find quartz from Spruce Pine,” Rolf Pippert, mine manager at The Quartz Corp, noted in a 2019 interview with the BBC.
Mitchell County, where Spruce Pine is situated, reported receiving over 2 feet (609 mm) of rain between Tuesday and Saturday, with officials stating that as of Monday, the area had “no electricity service, cell service, or internet connectivity.”
The county declared it experienced a catastrophic 500-year flood, indicating significant damage to infrastructure due to floodwaters, fallen trees, and downed power lines.
Both Sibelco and The Quartz Corp halted operations last Thursday, just before Hurricane Helene impacted Mitchell County.
In statements, both companies emphasized their priority was the health and safety of their employees. May Kristin Haugen, head of communication at The Quartz Corp, stated it was “impossible” to predict when operations would resume.
“We are currently assessing the damage at all plants, but our ability to operate again will also greatly depend on surrounding infrastructure,” she explained.
However, Haugen expressed confidence that there would not be shortages in the short or medium term, citing lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic about maintaining substantial safety stocks.
Source-BBC
