North Carolina county around Asheville counts Helen deaths as high as 30, sheriff says – Winston-Salem Journal

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina county that is home to Asheville has tallied 30 deaths from Helene, according to a statement Tuesday from the sheriff’s office and state data, significantly reducing the death toll from the historical storm.

Buncombe County officials, who previously reported 72 deaths, are now deferring to the state count of 42 deaths for the county.

The county number dates to an Oct. 3 news release in which county officials reported that “72 lives have been lost due to Hurricane Helena,” repeating a number cited by Sheriff Quentin Miller at an earlier media briefing. But state officials, relying on reviews from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh, consistently report a number lower than that for the county. The number for Buncombe County included in the state report is 42 as of at least Oct. 10.

On Tuesday, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged in a statement that the number of deaths in the county was lower than the number it provided. The statement, attributed to public information officer Christina Esmey, cited factors ranging from updated causes of death to communication challenges after the storm knocked out cell service and power in multiple mountain counties.

“Early on after Hurricane Helene, all deaths were classified as storm-related and from Buncombe County. However, as the days progressed, BCSO was able to identify who died due to the hurricane, who was actually from Buncombe County, and who died of other causes,” the statement said. “In addition to the lack of consistent communication, due to widespread outages the number of deaths in Buncombe County that was originally given to Sheriff Miller has decreased.

The sheriff’s office did not provide additional information about how they arrived at their count, and spokesman Matt Marshall said any other questions about how the deaths were investigated and counted should be directed to state officials. In response to a request for an interview with the sheriff, Marshall said he would check on his availability.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh typically reviews weather-related deaths and decides the cause before reporting numbers through state officials, a process it has used in past storms for years. But in the post-Helene chaos, a number of counties reported death tolls independent of the state. The death toll gradually increased by Tuesday, but the climb slowed as bodies were examined.

State Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Kelly Haight Conner told the Citizen-Times in Asheville on Monday that all storm-related deaths found in the mountains have been reviewed and accounted for, but she could not rule out the possibility that the number could rise. increased.

Haight Conner did not immediately respond to several follow-up questions from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The state reported 96 deaths from Helena statewide on Tuesday. Another county, Henderson, previously reported two more deaths than the state, but said Tuesday it agreed with the state’s tally.

The AP reported a total of at least 246 deaths in multiple states attributed to Helene as of Monday, including 128 in North Carolina, based on data from the state and counties including Henderson and Buncombe. With Buncombe County’s revelation that the number was inflated, the AP took the state total to 96, bringing the news organization’s statewide tally to 214.