The death toll in the Asheville area has surged to at least 40 following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Survivors from remote mountain towns are recounting harrowing scenes, with bodies being discovered in trees as floodwaters ravaged the region.

Nationwide, Hurricane Helene has claimed at least 133 lives since it made landfall last Thursday, leaving a trail of destruction across the Southeast.

“There were bodies in trees. They were finding bodies under rubble,” said Alyssa Hudson, a resident of Black Mountain, a small village located 12 miles from Asheville. Her community, home to 8,400 people, was nearly wiped out.

The storm battered Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, unleashing floods and mudslides that washed away entire communities. Roads were obliterated, leaving many stranded without access to rescue crews.

Hudson, who evacuated her neighborhood before the worst of the storm hit, watched in disbelief as videos posted to social media showed her home submerged. “We started seeing videos of our house posted to Facebook,” she said. “Our floors are caved in, our walls are gone. We had a shed in our backyard that they found two miles away.”

Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction began Thursday night when it struck Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 2 hurricane with winds reaching 155 mph, killing at least 13 people. By Friday morning, it had weakened into a tropical storm but continued its deadly course through Georgia, where 25 lives were lost. The storm then moved through Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, resulting in a total of at least 29 deaths.

North Carolina saw some of the most devastating effects, with torrential rains Friday night causing widespread flooding and mudslides in the Appalachian region. In the Asheville area alone, at least 35 people died, while a tornado in Rocky Mount injured 15. Over the weekend, rescue efforts were hampered as workers tried to clear roads and recover bodies, with as many as 600 people still missing.

Hudson and her boyfriend managed to flee before the worst of the flooding, but many of their friends and neighbors were not so fortunate. Some were trapped in town, witnessing the grim reality of bodies floating in ditches and battling rising floodwaters to survive.

“It’s like a f—ing living hell that we just can’t wake up from,” said Hudson’s coworker, Corbin Weeks, who coaches softball at a local college. He described watching rescue crews slice a mobile home in half to clear a blocked road and pulling a family from a trailer moments before it was consumed by a river of brown sludge.

Kimberly and Jimmie Stone were cut off from their daughter, a student at Montreat College, where about 1,000 students were trapped with no power and limited cellphone service. When the couple attempted to reach Black Mountain from Asheville, they were met with scenes of devastation: “All along the road, there were downed trees, downed power lines, structures collapsed, cars pushed over, train tracks destroyed. Buildings collapsed on the road,” Kimberly said.

The Stones eventually reunited with their daughter, but many students remained stranded on campus for days, surviving on food prepared in the cafeteria with gas-powered stoves.

Throughout the region, the devastation was widespread. Trucks and campers were strewn about like toys, while a flattened cargo container lay atop a bridge spanning a swollen river. In Chimney Rock, a town famous for being the backdrop in films like Last of the Mohicans and Dirty Dancing, the historic center was completely washed away. “Every bit of it, all of it,” a local official reported.

As rescue efforts continued, volunteers like Mike Toberer braved the treacherous conditions. Toberer and his team used mules to carry food, water, and supplies across roads covered in mud. “We’ll take our chainsaws, and we’ll push those mules through,” he said.

Asheville’s water system sustained heavy damage, forcing residents to use creek water for basic needs. Early estimates suggest the total damage caused by Hurricane Helene could reach $34 billion.

For Hudson and her boyfriend, the future is uncertain. With their renter’s insurance offering no coverage for natural disasters, they are left with almost nothing. “Almost literally everything we own is gone,” she said. “My boyfriend lost all of the equipment for his business. Our furniture, electronics, family photos and records, birth certificates — completely gone.”

Despite the overwhelming loss, what Hudson will miss most are the friends and neighbors who made Black Mountain feel like home. “We were a mountain town, but now we look like a farm town. It’s all destroyed … A lot of people won’t be back,” she said.