The western North Carolina county that includes Asheville acknowledged on Tuesday that it had overcounted by 30 the number of people who died from the effects of Hurricane Helene last month.
The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office revised the death toll down to 42, having earlier reported 72 deaths from the storm that devastated the region with catastrophic flooding and mudslides.
A statement from Matthew Marshall, a spokesman from the sheriff’s office, said that in the immediate aftermath of the storm “all deaths were being classified as storm-related and from Buncombe County.” He added that there were other complications, including a lack of consistent communication, because of widespread cell and power outages.
The state’s Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement on Tuesday that county officials were no longer independently reporting storm-related deaths, and were instead relying on the state officials.
With the revision of the count in Buncombe County, the statewide death toll from Helene in North Carolina now stands at 96, officials said. More than 20 people remain missing.
The remnants of Helene caused catastrophic damage to Asheville and other communities in western North Carolina in September. More than 5,000 customers are still without power, and though much of the water has been restored, the city remains under a boil-water notice as employees work to clean the North Fork reservoir, which supplies much of Asheville’s drinking water.
Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane along the Gulf Coast of Florida, more than 400 miles from Asheville. But the heavy rain from the storm swelled the region’s rivers and creeks, flooding and washing out homes and businesses.
More than 200 people across at least six states were killed as Helene moved through the Southeast, dumping heavy rain that devastated the mountainous regions of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.
The fierce floodwaters swept homes and roads into piles of debris. Of the 1,200 roads that were closed after the storm, more than 750 have reopened. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided $4.3 billion in funding to help people across several states recover from the storm; about $1.4 billion of that went to North Carolina.
“This will take billions of dollars and years of bipartisan focus from everyone working together to make it happen,” Gov. Roy Cooper said of the recovery effort. “We need western North Carolina to recover.”
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