HICKORY, N.C. — As aircraft fly into areas of North Carolina hardest hit by Helene, some are returning with their own special cargo.
Helicopters were carrying 53 adults from an assisted living facility in Burnsville, a small town in Yancey County located near Mt. Mitchell.
WCNC Charlotte was at the Hickory Regional Airport as those aircraft arrived on Tuesday. Medical personnel were at the airport to care for any of the evacuees.
Hickory is located in the foothills of North Carolina between Asheville and Charlotte. It is one of the closest operating airports just outside the disaster zone.
With Helene's death toll nearing 150, searchers fanned out across the region, using helicopters to get past washed-out bridges and hiking through wilderness to reach isolated homes. Nearly half of the deaths were in North Carolina, while dozens of others were in South Carolina and Georgia.
Many who lived through what was one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history were left without electricity or any way to reach out for help. Some cooked food on charcoal grills or hiked to high ground in the hopes of finding a signal to call loved ones.
President Joe Biden was set to survey the devastation in the region Wednesday.
More than 150,000 households have already registered for assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency — a number that is expected to rapidly rise in the coming days, Frank Matranga, an agency representative, said.
Nearly 2 million ready-to-eat meals and more than a million liters of water have been sent to the hardest-hit areas, he said.
With at least 31 killed in South Carolina, Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone to hit the state since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.
Contact Vanessa Ruffes at vruffes@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Associated Press contributed to this report