Crews search for survivors in North Carolina's mountains days after Helene's deluge

(1 Oct 2024) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS Swannanoa, North Carolina - 1 October 2024 1. Various of search and rescue and utility company crews driving and walking around a community in Swannanoa 2. Various exteriors of Cliff Stewart's home 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Cliff Stewart, Swannanoa resident: "Well, I had to just stay here in my bed and just wait until hopefully the water receded, which it did. I think it was the next day it receded." 4. Various of food, medicine and supplies inside Stewart's home 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Cliff Stewart, Swannanoa resident: "But everything I had, including all the medicine from the VA (Veterans Affairs), they were all floating around in the water and I'm afraid to take the stuff. Like I said, I'm afraid to even drink the water that I had, the bottle of water. Because it was all underwater and it wasn't just water." 6. Cutaway of Stewart speaking to reporter 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Cliff Stewart, Swannanoa resident: “Several people have asked me or told me that I needed to get out here. And I said, ‘Well, where am I going to go? This is my home’. I own the home, I rent the property, but I own the home and this is all I've got. I just don't want to give it up because what am I going to do? Be homeless? No, I don't want to be homeless. I'd rather die right here than live homeless." 8. Portrait of a Marine Corps veteran 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Cliff Stewart, Swannanoa resident: "Because I've been through hell in the Marine Corps in Vietnam and If I survived that, I surely can survive this." 10. Stewart's car outside his home 11. Various of damaged homes and debris 12. Various of search and rescue dog and handler searching for victims 13. Damaged home STORYLINE: Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris on Tuesday looking in the mountains of western North Carolina for victims of Hurricane Helene, days after the storm carved a deadly and destructive path through the Southeast. With Helene's death toll nearing 150, searchers fanned out across the region, using helicopters to get past washed-out bridges and hiking through wilderness to reach isolated homes. The devastation was especially bad in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where at least 50 people died in and around Asheville, a tourism haven known for its art galleries, breweries and outdoor activities. Just outside the city, in the small community of Swannanoa, receding floodwaters revealed cars stacked on top of others and trailer homes that had floated away during the storm. Roads were caked with mud and debris and pockmarked by sinkholes. Cliff Stewart, who lives at Black Mountain Mobile Home Court in Swannanoa, North Carolina, said a firefighter came to his home and told him that they were evacuating the area due to flash flooding. But the U.S. Marine Corps veteran stayed to ride out the storm, which flooded his home with two feet of water, topping the wheels on his wheelchair. Stewart joked that he thought he woke up at the beach when he found his medicine bottles floating from room to room. “I had to just stay here in my bed and wait until hopefully it receded,” he said. Stewart said he was afraid to drink his bottled water because it had been submerged in the sewage-filled floodwaters. “Several people have asked me or told me that I needed to get out here. And I said, ‘Well, where am I going to go? This is my home,’” he said. “This is all I've got. I just don't want to give it up because what am I going to do? Be homeless?” “I'd rather die right here than live homeless,” he added. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...