At least one county, Buncombe, where 42 people died, said last week it would reopen the search if new information came to light about the 10 it could not confirm. Gov. Roy Cooper, in an update early last week, described the unaccounted for number as an estimate and put it at 26.

Justin Graney, Chief of External Affairs and Communications for North Carolina Emergency Management, told The Center Square Monday night that the total number of missing or unaccounted for is 10.

“The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services only manages the number of deaths as determined by the State Office of the Chief Medical Examiner,” Graney wrote in an email. “The North Carolina Department of Public Safety is working with state and local law enforcement to adjudicate the list of missing persons.”

Three deaths have been reported since Cooper’s update.

“There are going to be some people that we lost in this storm that we will never find,” Ryan Cole told The New York Post on Wednesday.

He is the Buncombe County Deputy Director of Emergency Services and a former fire chief. Buncombe has a population of about 269,000, just under 100,000 of them in Asheville, about 2,100 feet above sea level.

Helene made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, dissipated over the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and dropped more than 12 inches of rain in some locations. A solid 2 feet of rain fell in many places, and the terrain created rapid catastrophes not seen since at least the Great Flood of 1916, which was produced by hurricanes that arrived just over a week apart, one from the Gulf of Mexico, the other coming ashore. in Charleston, SC

Cooper, in a 99-page recommendation for $3.9 billion in funding from the state Legislature, said damages are estimated at $53 billion. As First Lady Jill Biden joined him in Polk County on Friday, his office wrote in a statement: “The funding proposed by legislative Republicans this week is only 1/6 of that recommendation and did not include funding for small business grants and other key needs.”

In context, the governor has long criticized the Republican-majority General Assembly since winning election in 2016 for managing what is known as the Rainy Day Fund. In fact, he complained about it on the campaign trail and has since tried to spend it. Twenty-five years ago, Hurricane Floyd — a once-in-500-year flood — recovery from lawmakers included an $840 million relief package without enough rainy-day funds to pay for it.

As the first decade of the new century was going through a difficult fiscal period, the state’s budget deficit when Republicans won majorities in 2010 was between $800 million and $1.2 billion. This year’s nearly $5 billion surplus — a recovery of about $6 billion in less than 15 years — has been used twice by the Legislature for nearly $900 million, and its respective leaders say this amount is only an “tranche” as more needs are assessed and recovery progresses.

A 50-year-old Henderson County man was added to North Carolina’s death toll on Sunday. A statement said he died after falling from a tree while clearing storm debris.

The storm claimed the lives of a 4-year-old, two 7-year-olds and a 9-year-old, and ages 89, 90 and 91. Drownings caused 34 deaths, landslides 23 and 20 violent injuries. There were three car accidents and four car drownings.

According to PowerOutage.us by mid-afternoon, there were 1,812 without power in Yancey County, 1,263 in Macon County and 102 in Mitchell County. At the height of the storm on the last weekend in September, more than 1 million lost power.

According to DriveNC.orgthe number of secondary road closures dropped to 327. The statewide total from Helene was 400, including two interstates, 32 federal highways and 39 state roads.