FEMA Administrator: “I don’t know if anyone could be fully prepared for the extent of the flooding” from Helene in North Carolina

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Sunday that the “historic flooding” in North Carolina The damage from the remnants of Hurricane Helene is beyond what could have been imagined in the area.

“I don’t know that anyone could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides they’re experiencing right now,” Criswell said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Helene Landing made in Florida as a strong Category 4 storm late Thursday before sweeping across states in the Southeast. Criswell called the storm “a real multistate event,” adding that her team on the ground experienced “significant impacts in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.”

Asheville, North Carolina, was hit particularly hard as rising floodwaters damaged roads, caused power outages and disrupted cell phone reception.

For North Carolina specifically, Criswell said the agency has had teams in the area for several days and will be sending additional search and rescue teams. She said water remains a “major issue” and the Army Corps of Engineers is working to figure out what can be done to get water systems back online. And she noted that the agency is also working to introduce satellite communications.

“We are hearing about significant infrastructure damage to water systems, communications systems, roads, major transportation routes, as well as several homes that were destroyed as a result,” Criswell said. “So this is going to be a really complicated recovery in each of these five states that have had this impact.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has received reports of this several fatalities in five states, Criswell said. She encouraged people in the affected areas who are looking for someone to call 211 and register the information.

In Florida, Criswell said there was a storm surge of up to 15 feet in Taylor County, where she traveled at the direction of President Biden, adding that there were record storm surges throughout the Big Bend area. She said in North Carolina, “we are still in active search and rescue mode” as flooding and landslides continue to occur. The administrator will travel to Georgia and North Carolina in the coming days to assess the impact of the hurricane.

Regarding resources for affected states, Criswell said, “We absolutely have enough resources from across the federal family” and can draw on other federal agencies to support the response and recovery.

“We will continue to use these resources to help them,” Criswell said. “We want to work with them to rebuild in a way that will help make them more resilient and reduce the impact of the increasing number of storms they are facing.”