A clearer picture of the damage caused by Hurricane Helene is emerging, with the current death toll estimated at 121 across six south-eastern US states.
Widespread devastation was left behind by the storm, one of the worst in the country's history, with a wasteland of splintered houses, crushed cargo containers and mud-covered highways across its south. The damage it inflicted stretched from Florida's Gulf Coast northward to the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia.
During a White House briefing on Monday, local time, Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall suggested as many as 600 people hadn't been accounted for, saying some might be dead.
Debris is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Asheville. (AP: Mike Stewart)
North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper, predicted the toll in his state would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers continue to reach areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
Government officials and aid groups were working to bring basic supplies by air, road and mule to the hard-hit tourism hub of Asheville, and its surrounding mountain towns.
Residents there, stranded by washed-out roads and a lack of power and cellular service, lined up on Monday for fresh water and a chance to message loved ones that they were alive.
How some of the worst-hit areas are coping
In one neighbourhood, where a wall of water ripped away all of the trees and left behind a muddy mess, people shared food and water and comforted each other.
"That's the blessing so far in this," Sommerville Johnston said outside her home, which has been without power since Friday.
Some waited in a line for more than a block at Mountain Valley Water, a water seller, to fill up milk jugs and whatever other containers they could find.
Derek Farmer, who brought three 10-litre-sized apple juice containers, said he had been prepared for the storm but now was nervous after three days without water. "I just didn't know how bad it was going to be," Mr Farmer said.
Officials warned that rebuilding from the widespread loss of homes and property would be lengthy and difficult.
The storm up-ended life throughout the south-east, where deaths were also reported in Florida and Virginia.
Video showed a mass of debris, including overturned pontoon boats and splintered wooden docks, covering the surface of Lake Lure, a picturesque spot tucked between the mountains outside Asheville.
Debris is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (AP: Mike Stewart)
Helene roared ashore in northern Florida late on Thursday as a category four hurricane and quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded waterways.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials said that hundreds of roads were closed across western North Carolina and that shelters were housing more than 1,000 people.
The governor implored area residents to avoid travel for their own safety and to keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams spread throughout the region in search of stranded people.
Waiting for help and searching for a signal in North Carolina
Several dozen people gathered on high ground in Asheville, where they found one of the city's hottest commodities — a mobile signal.
"Is this day three or day four?" Colleen Burnet asked. "It's all been a blur."
Flood debris from Hurricane Helene floats by in Rutherford County. (AP: Tariq Bokhari )
The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. Rainfall estimates in some areas topped more than 60 centimetres since Wednesday.
President Joe Biden said that the federal government would be with survivors and others in the nation's south-east affected by Helene "as long as it takes".
He expected to ask Congress for additional money for disaster assistance and intends to travel to North Carolina later this week when his presence wouldn't divert from live-saving search-and-rescue missions.
Ten federal search and rescue teams were on the ground and another nine were on their way, while trucks and cargo planes were arriving with food and water, the FEMA said.
Debris is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (AP: Mike Stewart)
FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell surveyed the damage with North Carolina's governor on Monday.
Volunteers were showing up too. Mike Toberer decided to bring a dozen of his mules to deliver food, water and nappies to the hard-to-reach mountainous areas.
"We'll take our chainsaws, and we'll push those mules through," he said, noting that each one can carry about 90 kilograms and travel 3.2 kilometres per hour.
Why western North Carolina was hit so hard
Western North Carolina suffered relatively more devastation because that's where the remnants of Helene encountered the higher elevations and cooler air of the Appalachian Mountains, causing even more rain to fall.
Asheville and many surrounding mountain towns were built in valleys, leaving them especially vulnerable to devastating rain and flooding.
Plus, the ground already was saturated before Helene arrived, said Christiaan Patterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The Pamlico County rescue team working in the aftermath of Helene near the area of Chimney Rock. (AP Photo: Pamlico County Special Operation)
"By the time Helene came into the Carolinas, we already had that rain on top of more rain," Mr Patterson said.
Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones, sometimes within hours.
Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, said the storm "literally spared no one".
Most people in and around Augusta, a city of about 200,000 people near the South Carolina border, were still without power on Monday.
With at least 25 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.
AP