Rescuers in parts of the southeastern United States were still searching for the missing on Friday, as Hurricane Helene hit the Florida coast, becoming the deadliest land-based hurricane in the United States since Katrina in 2005.

The death toll could continue to rise and topped 200 on Thursday, while the sheer scale of the devastation from wind and flooding slowed efforts to find many people’s relatives, deliver supplies to stranded communities and restore power to more than 700,000 people to provide.

Officials have reported at least 215 deaths as a result of Helene in six states and warned that more dead will be found in the coming days and weeks as recovery efforts continue amid shocking devastation to entire cities, roads and vital infrastructure with rescue workers becoming exhausted.

The hardest-hit state was North Carolina, where about half of the reported deaths occurred. According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, the death toll in western North Carolina rose to 108 people on Thursday.

In some parts of the state, such as Buncombe County and other mountain communities, residents and communities were isolated due to impassable, flooded or destroyed roads, mudslides, fallen trees and huge amounts of debris, destroyed homes, and little to no cell phone service, internet connections or electricity.

Tens of thousands of residents in the state were also without running water this week, Reuters reported. On Tuesday, the state issued boil water warnings and said 27 water plants were closed and not producing water.

“We know these are difficult times, but please know that we are coming,” Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said at a news conference Thursday. “We’re coming to get you. We are coming to collect our people.” Seventy-two people have already been declared dead in the county alone and officials estimate at least 200 are still missing as the loss of communications infrastructure significantly complicates efforts.

Jason Long, the head of the volunteer rescue unit in Alleghany County, North Carolina, told the Guardian that he had “never seen anything like the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene” in his community, describing it as “catastrophic.”

“We are facing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in damage,” he said, adding that people had lost homes, farms, livestock, livestock, equipment and businesses, as well as loved ones. “It’s going to be tough,” he added.

On Friday, the number of power outages in the southeastern region fell below one million for the first time since the storm. Still, according to poweroutage.us, more than 250,000 people in South Carolina were without power as of Friday morning, as well as over 230,000 people in North Carolina, just over 200,000 in Georgia, 13,000 in Virginia and 10,000 in Florida.

Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida last Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane. It then developed into a tropical storm and moved northward through Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia, causing extreme rainfall, strong winds, devastating flooding, washed-out roads, and severe power and cell phone outages.

Joe Biden approved federal disaster assistance for survivors in certain counties in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, and more than 4,800 members of the total federal workforce will be deployed to affected areas across the country, along with 6,000 National Guard personnel 12 states, according to the White House.

In addition, the US President announced on Wednesday that he would send up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers to North Carolina to strengthen the state’s National Guard.

This came as Biden visited Georgia, Florida and affected areas of North and South Carolina this week to assess the damage there.

Kamala Harris, the vice president and Democratic presidential candidate, visited Augusta, Georgia, as did Donald Trump, her Republican opponent.

Trump returns to Georgia on Friday and is expected to appear with Gov. Brian Kemp in Evans, although the former president has repeatedly criticized the governor for not supporting Trump’s efforts to overturn Democrats’ 2020 election triumph in the state. Kemp did not meet with Biden during his visit Thursday, although the White House said he was invited to do so.

Biden and Harris met first responders and survivors and talked about delivering federal aid while avoiding partisan politics. Trump has repeatedly accused both Democrats of abandoning the storm’s victims.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, has warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) does not have enough resources to get through the rest of this hurricane season, which typically lasts until the end of November.

Biden has proposed calling Congress back from recess, which will last until the Nov. 5 presidential election, to approve additional funding for the agency.