“Nobody knew exactly how devastating it was going to be.” With that phrase, Joe Biden, president of the United States, defines the catastrophe that Helene left in the South of that country, with damage that has yet to be quantified.
For now, The president announced that tomorrow he will go to the State of North Carolina to evaluate the consequences of the hurricane Helenefor which there are already more than 100 deaths in that nation.
Until now, heThe death toll exceeds one hundred and at least 600 have been reported missing in the States of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia..
The town of Asheville, located in a mountainous area of North Carolina, has been one of the most affected. There alone 35 people have died due to numerous floods and landslides.
“God willing they (the missing people) are alive, but there is no way to contact them due to the lack of cell phone coverage,” Biden said, regarding the government’s response to Hurricane Helene.
The Democratic president, who will carry out an aerial visit to the affected area, added to the press that in addition to North Carolina he plans to travel to Florida and Georgia “as soon as possible.”
He admitted that the recovery of the affected areas will take a long time, but rejected that there was a lack of preparation.
Helene It made landfall last Thursday in Northwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane and is already among the deadliest hurricanes of the last 50 years. It has followed a path of destruction of some 800 kilometers after making landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida, which recorded historic flooding, and from where it continued to leave a trail of devastation that reached the mountainous area of North Carolina.
The White House has already deployed more than 3,600 members of its emergency personnel to participate in the search tasks.who have joined the efforts of local governments.
EFE
Kirk, new threat in the Atlantic
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced the formation of Tropical Storm Kirk and predicted that it will become a “large and powerful” hurricane by the end of this week.
The system, which does not yet represent a threat on land, is located 1,125 kilometers west of the Cape Verde Islands, according to an NHC bulletin.
The National Center warns that Kirk, the eleventh named tropical storm of the current hurricane season that ends on November 30, has maximum sustained winds of 70 kilometers per hour.
Isaac, for its part, has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm and is expected to become a system today. postropical. It remained in the middle of the Atlantic without causing threats, it is about 825 kilometers northwest of the Azores Islands.
For its part, Joyce in the Pacific, which also posed no threat on land, is now a tropical depression which will reduce to a low pressure system within the week.
CT