As search for Helene's victims drags into second week, sheriff says rescuers 'will not rest'

The search for victims of Hurricane Helene dragged into its second week on Friday, as exhausted rescue crews and volunteers continued to work long days — navigating past washed out roads, downed power lines and mudslides — to reach the isolated and the missing.

“We know these are hard times, but please know we’re coming," Sheriff Quentin Miller of Buncombe County, North Carolina, said at a Thursday evening press briefing. “We’re coming to get you. We’re coming to pick up our people.”

With at least 215 killed, Helene is already the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005, and dozens or possibly hundreds of people are still unaccounted for. Roughly half the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens more were killed in South Carolina and Georgia.

In Buncombe County alone, 72 people had been confirmed dead as of Thursday evening, Miller said. Buncombe includes the tourist hub of Asheville, the region's most populous city. Still, the sheriff holds out hope that many of the missing are alive.

His message to them?

“Your safety and well-being are our highest priority. And we will not rest until you are secure and that you are being cared for.”

Rescuers face difficult terrain

Now more than a week since the storm roared onto Florida’s Gulf Coast, lack of phone service and electricity continues to hinder efforts to contact the missing. That means search crews must trudge through the mountains to learn whether residents are safe.

Along the Cane River in western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department had to cut their way through trees at the top of a valley on Thursday, nearly a week after a wall of water swept through.

Pensacola, which sits a few miles from