Sam Perkins spent Saturday trudging through dangerous terrain to check on his parents, whose home was hit hard by Hurricane Helene.

The highest death toll was in North Carolina, where flooding wiped out whole communities. Residents there and across vast areas of the Southeast were without water, power, phone and internet communication.

North Carolina election officials are scrambling to make sure the state's over 7 million registered voters can cast a ballot in the upcoming presidential election, after flooding from Hurricane Helene caused extensive damage in the western part of the state.