Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene came ashore on the Florida Gulf Coast, residents in mountainous North Carolina towns are still dealing with the aftermath of the storm.
After getting pounded with up to 20 inches of rain, life still hasn't returned to normal for thousands of residents. At least 191 deaths have been tied to Helene, with North Carolina recording the majority of those.
Izzy Cropp lived through Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, and now she is among those dealing with the aftermath of Helene. She said there are many comparisons between the aftermath left from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Helene.
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One major difference Cropp noted is Helene struck a mountainous region nowhere near the coast.
"The things that I saw from Katrina are nowhere near just based on the landscape how Asheville and the surrounding areas are just nestled in the mountains," Cropp said. "The destruction of land the destruction of loss of life of home, it's hard to even describe."
With Katrina, most of the devastation occurred after levees failed to protect New Orleans from Katrina's storm surge. With Helene, the flooding came as a result of heavy rain.
"Asheville city had a lot of water damage in the areas that were near rivers," she said. "These little towns, they're up on a mountain, they're near these rivers, they're in watershed areas and there's just no getting to people there. They're stranded, they're having to airlift folks out or access them by off-roading vehicles or even mules I've seen recently."
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Following Helene, Cropp said she feels fortunate.
"I mean a little survivor's guilt was happening just being able to get out and not being impacted the way some of the mountain towns have. But I'm lucky where I live didn't flood," she said. "We got heavy tree-to-house damage. My house is OK, luckily, but the suffering there is just unimaginable."
