Hurricane Helen aftermath: Dozens still missing as search enters second week

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Weary and tired residents in Asheville's Julian Johnson neighborhood have been living without power ever since. Hurricane Helen They tore apart Southeast last week and turned their lives upside down. They've been cooking on propane stoves and using dry erase boards to keep up with local events while wondering when the lights will come back on.

Johnson, who has a 5-year-old son and works for a land conservation group, received a text from Duke Energy promising to have her power restored by Friday night. But as of midday, power poles and wires were still hanging at odd angles in the streets, toppled by mangled trees.

“I have no idea what's next,” said Johnson, whose family has some power thanks to a generator. “The breadth of this to encompass the entire region, it's kind of amazing.”

She and her neighbors have been taking care of each other since Helen came ashore on September 26 Category 4 hurricane It carved a path of destruction as it moved north from Florida, Killing at least 220 people In six states, including at least 72 in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville. Block leaders prepare whiteboards with information about who can provide first aid and where to repair tools.

Nearly 700,000 homes and businesses — mostly in the Carolinas and Georgia — were still without power Friday, according to poweroutage.us. That's an improvement from the more than 2 million customers without power five days ago, and Duke Energy, North Carolina's dominant provider, said it hopes to have the lights back on by Sunday night for many of its affected customers. But for nearly 100,000 customers in places that suffered catastrophic damage, that could be as soon as next week or longer, according to company spokesman Bill Norton.

“We're talking about places where homes are no longer there,” Norton said, adding that some roads where power poles once stood have been completely washed away.

The company said it would not meet its Friday goal of restoring power to nearly all of its customers in South Carolina, and it is now preparing for Sunday. Dominion Energy also said restoring power to the state's hardest-hit counties will take longer than initially expected.

Utility work is progressing slowly

Along Swannanoa River Road on Asheville's east side, Duke Energy and its contractors fanned out Friday afternoon to place about 20 new power poles in an area where floodwaters snapped or washed away many old poles.

David Martin, who has done engineering work for Duke for three decades in the area, said the damage is far worse than anything he's seen before.

“In the repair phase, most of your facility is there, and you just have to rewire it, naturally,” Martin said. “In this case we have to start everything new — new poles, new wires, new transformers, new services, everything. It's all been washed out.”

Just digging the hole and placing one pole can take up to two hours, Martin said. This does not count the time required to connect equipment or connect lines. The company cannot use a drill-like drilling machine to dig as many holes along the road because of the underground facilities.

“A lot of them, you have to manually drill the holes because there are gas lines,” Martin said.

While there were a few columns that existed before the storm that workers were trying to save, much of the infrastructure was completely destroyed. Some of Duke's lines were washed down the middle of the fairway at the city golf course, tangling with utility poles and trees.

As is the case in many places in western North Carolina, someone must first rebuild the washed-out road before utilities can finish restoring the line.

Storm Damaged water facilities So intense and over such a wide area that one federal official said it “could be considered unprecedented.” Repairs may take weeks.