A clearer picture of Helene's anger is emerging as cut-off communities take stock of what's left

BAKERSVILLE, N.C. — In Mitchell County, a mountainous and remote region of North Carolina made even more remote by Hurricane Helene, residents are trying to make sense of the unthinkable.

“Where are we going?” asked Susan Allen Wroblewski, 70, who also makes her home in Sarasota, Florida, a few months a year. “We were hit the worst. It was stressful. “Just not having power and not being able to communicate and get in touch with friends.”

Some Bakersville residents have taken the recovery effort into their own hands by helping clear and repair roads this week, Mitchell County Deputy Austin Duncan said Friday.

“People came by with chainsaws and heavy equipment and asked where they could help,” he said.

Thousands of trees were toppled in Helene's rage, damaged train tracks were left on riverbeds and school buses were blown away. The Mitchell County building was flooded, as were the sheriff's office and the Department of Transportation. For the foreseeable future, the deputies will work at the closed Bowman Middle School, Duncan said.

Hurricane Helene and its relentless flooding killed at least 223 people across the Southeast, and the death toll could continue to rise as dozens of people remain missing since the storm hit Florida on September 26.

Across western North Carolina, including Asheville and surrounding Buncombe County, uprooted homes, flooded vehicles and submerged roads illustrate the devastation wrought by a relentless hurricane.

Access to and from Black Mountain was more challenging, and here too houses were lifted and thrown into streams. Toys, purses, tires, milk containers and other personal items are scattered haphazardly and thrown far from their original location.

Black Mountain resident Diane Douglas, 58, cleaned up her uninhabitable home. Since she didn't have flood insurance, she doesn't know what the future holds.

Floodwaters from a nearby dam forced a storage unit across the street into a modular home, which then rammed into their home next door.

“It’s just sweat work and justice,” Douglas said through tears. “It’s just too much.”

Douglas, whose shirt and shorts were covered in mud, said she runs a business from home but doesn't make much money. “It’s heartbreaking,” she said.

Behind her house was a residential home for adults with disabilities.

Of the yellow buildings that stood there a week ago, one was thrown into the river, another was uprooted and the remaining two were torn apart.

All that remains are empty lots, bricks and old vinyl albums.

A once-busy road next to a stream in Black Mountain collapsed during the storm, making it impassable and difficult to cross.

“We have to go through our neighbor's house to get to our house,” said 32-year-old Dylan Shook, whose driveway and mailbox were also tossed aside. Ignacio Espino, 27, stood in awe on the edge of town, looking out over another part of a road that dropped steeply into the river below.

Espino waited out the hurricane at Black Mountain Academy, where he works with children with autism.

“I’m in shock,” he said.