North Carolina town is ‘searching’ for missing teachers in the ‘devastating’ wake of Hurricane Helene.

Mistie Cogbill, a Black Mountain educator and lifetime local, broke down on ‘America’s Newsroom’ addressing the storm.

One North Carolina educator made an impassioned plea for aid after Hurricane Helene devastated her village and adjacent communities.

Mistie Cogbill, a teacher and lifetime Black Mountain resident, visited “America’s Newsroom” for a tear-jerking interview to put light on how much aid the Asheville area requires following last week’s epic storm, which caused fatal flooding and landslides.

“We have seen those who are close to us lose their homes,” Cogbill told Dana Perino on Wednesday. “We have witnessed classrooms full of youngsters who have lost their homes. We are looking for teachers. We have been unable to discover 23 teachers from our list. I have been a teacher at Black Mountain for 25 years. I have lived there for 48 years, and nothing like this has ever happened.”

“School is out indefinitely, and there is where many of our families obtained meals and services including as therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy. “It was their community,” she added. “When we are talking about little children who have only experienced the pandemic and then had one month of normalcy to their lives and then now this, it is just devastating.”

Hurricane Helene devastated communities in western North Carolina, damaging hundreds of roads and bridges. Access to some places has been shut off, preventing staff from delivering essential supplies such as food, water, and gasoline to people.

More than 70 people have been reported deceased in North Carolina, with hundreds still missing owing to a lack of electricity and communication access.

“There is no path. “My cousin lost her house,” Cogbill explained. “They are feeding the fire department and cooperating because… A community is not a collection of buildings. Our community’s heart is in its people, and we are all working together… As you can see, the wreckage is almost staggering.”

There have been at least 170 verified deaths in six states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. That figure is anticipated to grow as first responders continue to hunt for survivors and get access to towns that were cut off following the storm.

Perino asked Cogbill what message she had for the Biden administration before officials inspected the tragic devastation.

“We need a lot of aid. “We do not want to be forgotten,” Cogbill begged. “All of our communities support one another. The youngsters from Black Mountain and Swannanoa attend the same school. We are not distinct… We need infant formula, baby food, and pet supplies. We need to reach out.

“We have a group of nurses who are off duty that are setting up a medical station at First Baptist Church, and we are trying to do the best we can, but we just need help,” she told me.

Helene is currently the second deadliest storm to reach the continental United States in the previous 55 years, after only storm Katrina in 2005 and the most since Hurricane Camille struck the Gulf Coast in August 1969.

Steven Yablonski and Emilee Speck from FOX Weather contributed to this story.

 

SOURCE