After Hurricane Helene, questions arise about the government's response

Long lines for gas. Accommodations are full. More than 300 road closures. A severely damaged water system that could take weeks to repair.

Hundreds of miles from where it made landfall in Big Bend, Florida, Hurricane Helene caused unprecedented damage in western North Carolina, where at least 49 people died and dozens more are missing.

“The devastation has been incredible,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “And even if you prepare for something like this, it’s something that’s never happened in Western North Carolina.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported Monday that it had delivered about 1 million gallons of water and more than 600,000 meals to North Carolina. More than 5,000 households have contacted FEMA to apply for assistance by phone and online.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who joined Cooper in Asheville on Monday, said more than 1,200 federal workers were now on the ground responding to one of the worst disasters in North Carolina's history and pledged, “We're going to be here for a long time.” “It takes time to finish this response and continue recovery.”

However, some residents have criticized what they see as a lack of preparation for the catastrophic storm.

Devonna Brown, an Asheville business owner, said she feels the city has failed its residents. “They should have been better prepared. They knew this storm was coming,” she said. “We are very frustrated about it. I mean, there’s no way in, no way out.”

Sara Legatski, another Asheville business owner, said officials should have expressed more urgency and provided emergency water supplies sooner.

“There should have been a more urgent appeal to people to prepare,” she said. “Did they provide water from the mountain to transport here, knowing how fragile our water system is? None of this is a surprise. Anyone who behaves like this is a surprise, hasn’t been here long enough, doesn’t come from the mountains and doesn’t understand how water works.”

Spokespeople for the city and Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on residents' criticism.

Follow live updates on the aftermath of Hurricane Helene

Cooper said at a news conference Monday that people were working nonstop to provide food, water and assistance. He said flooding and ever-rising rivers have prevented first responders from entering some communities.

At a news conference early Monday, Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder expressed frustration with what she described as a slow response to requests for supplies.

“We have asked for water, but we are currently receiving water and it is still in small quantities,” she said. “There is a great need in our community and we would like to see a different response from our state partners, a better response from our state partners” to meet these requests through FEMA.

At Monday's White House press briefing, Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall told reporters that FEMA had focused its advance positioning efforts on the Big Bend, Florida, area and that those efforts had saved lives. After landing, “capacity increased to where it was needed most.” She noted that western North Carolina has now been identified as the hardest-hit area.

Rep. Chuck Edwards, a Republican who represents western North Carolina, said the state's emergency officials couldn't tell him where 400 pallets of FEMA food and water intended for hurricane relief were. Edwards' staff says two counties in particular, Haywood and McDowell, are in dire need of water. FEMA said in a news release that it sent 25 trailer loads of food and 60 trailer loads of water to North Carolina.

State officials are distributing them now, but Edwards employees say they haven't been able to figure out where or when they're going. A state official told Edward's team via email Sunday that the state is making no announcements about where food and water will be distributed to counties. “If only the public were told that water, etc. at point

Asked by NBC News on Monday whether FEMA knows what happened to the water and why it isn't getting quickly to those who need it most, Criswell said the agency is sending “as many resources as it asks for.” and try to “push”. Put the water in.”

“We all need to come together to make sure we understand where the communities are that we may not have yet provided the resources they need,” she said.

NBC News also asked FEMA spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg about a request for more resources sent Sept. 17 that cited “severe shortages” among some disaster response teams. Rothenberg acknowledged that staffing has been an issue. “It is true that we conduct many operations in many disasters,” she said, which is why the agency declared a so-called “Surge Capacity Force” in mid-September.

On Monday, about three days after Helene hit Florida as a Category 4 storm, survivors in North Carolina searched for food and clean water and shuffled from shelter to shelter.

The hurricane, which came on the heels of a rainstorm that dumped more than half a foot of rain in parts of western North Carolina, was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved north, triggering mudslides, downing trees, destroying bridges, destroying roads and left thousands of people without consequences, officials said.

“The damage is severe,” said State Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins. “This is an all-hands-on-deck event.”

Officials said widespread outages in water, electricity and cell service remained in Buncombe County and other parts of western North Carolina.

Asheville Assistant City Manager Ben Woody said essential city infrastructure was damaged, including the water system. “The damage to Asheville’s water system is catastrophic – we have a severely damaged water system.”

More than 11,000 people have asked for help locating loved ones who have been unable to reach them because of poor cell service, said Drew Reisinger of the Buncombe County Register of Deeds. Officials have narrowed the number down to 150 priority missing people cases – most of whom are elderly or medically vulnerable – with teams being deployed to homes and elsewhere to track them down, Reisinger said.

State and federal officials said Monday that emergency responders were also desperately working to distribute water, restore cellphone service and repair damage to utility infrastructure and more than 300 roads that remain closed across the state, most of them in the West of North Carolina.

Pinder said emergency responders distributed some bottled water to public housing residents throughout Buncombe County. Separate water distribution centers were also set up Monday, with officials limiting distribution to a daily supply — about 3 gallons — per person.

Pinder said the county tried to prevent a water shortage by requesting water and other supplies before last week's storm.

“We asked for water even before the storm started – because we knew that – not that it would fail – but we asked for water so people could have more of it,” Pinder said. “We asked for food, we asked for anything because we felt like some people were going to be cut off because of all the rain.”

Such requests go to the state, which works with FEMA to process them, Pinder said. Despite the advance requests, Pinder said, Buncombe County received its first delivery of water at 2:30 a.m. Monday.

When asked if the district had its own water reserves for such emergencies, Pinder admitted that it did not.

“We don’t have a county supply,” she said. The county relies on contractors for water reserves, she added, but said it can't immediately access water from its main local supplier, which it typically relies on in emergencies, because “the Swannanoa River kind of isolates them for us.” and we couldn't. Get this supply.”

At the press conference, Cooper assured residents that the state is working hard to address their outstanding needs. “We want to tell people that more help is on the way,” he said. “This is our primary mission at this time and this is a massive coordinated effort to help this area.”

Additional reporting by Jon Allen.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com