It’s not just the mountains: Areas near Charlotte and S.C. reeling from downed power lines, flooding

Hurricane Helene washed away mountain towns during its treacherous path through western North Carolina, but other parts of the state are reeling, too, despite the lack of media attention.

State Rep. Kelly Hastings, a Republican whose district is west of Charlotte and near the South Carolina border, said fallen trees knocked out power to elderly persons for a week. Lakeside residents, evacuated near the Mecklenburg County line ahead of the storm, have returned to find their homes flooded.

“A lot of people don’t realize it but those counties received a lot of damage. Sometimes we’re characterized as the foothills and the Piedmont,” he said. “This goes well beyond western North Carolina, especially down here in the southern border counties of South Carolina.”

Helene slammed into Florida at the end of September but its most shocking devastation unfolded in the Tarheel State, where about half of the storm’s 225 deaths occurred. The arts district of Asheville, a vacation hotspot in the Blue Ridge Mountains, was washed away and crews are still trying to reach stranded persons in isolated areas.

“The media attention has been focused on some of the areas where there might have been complete little towns washed away,” Mr. Hastings said. “I’m not taking away from that.”

Still, he said, it is important to remember “just how far east this damage really came outside of the mountains.”

The Biden-Harris administration is under intense pressure to help North Carolina recover from the storm, particularly in an election year. President Biden over the weekend sent an additional 500 active-duty troops to the area, bringing the total to 1,500.

Politics is looming in the background because North Carolina is a swing state that could determine who wins the presidency.

Former President Donald Trump says North Carolinians are being “stood up” by Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, pointing to persons stranded in parts of western North Carolina and billions of dollars in aid that has flowed overseas.

“Kamala is touting giving money to the people of Lebanon — while stiff-arming the humanitarian crisis in North Carolina,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on X over the weekend. “This is Kamala’s Katrina.”

Mr. Hastings said his focus is on the state and local picture. He said legislative leaders told lawmakers to expect midweek votes in Raleigh to assist the recovery effort by tapping into a state “rainy-day fund” for emergencies.

He said the biggest hurdle following the storm was the sheer number of roads disrupted by Helene, an estimated 400 statewide. Cut-off routes, combined with downed power lines and the lack of phone coverage, has made for an awful trifecta of woes.

“You can imagine being in a very rural area for days without significant communication, power and transportation,” Ms. Hastings said. “Until you’ve been here and seen it, you just can’t understand what type of devastation we’re seeing in some of the area.”

Rep. Mark Pless, a Republican whose district borders Tennessee, said the extent of road closures is what set Helene apart from previous crises in the state, including Hurricanes Ivan and Frances in 2004.

“No one anticipated needing the resources for the air and military because this was not something we have experienced,” he said.

Mr. Pless is a co-chairman for the state Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee.

He said finger-pointing over the response is distracting right now and pledged to do a full review of the response, including whether storm predictions could have been more accurate or if certain resources should have been in place.

“We’re going to look at this and see what happened and what should not have happened. But that will be months away. We will see to it that that is addressed,” Mr. Pless said. “This is not the time for everybody to be second-guessing.”