The death toll from Hurricane Helene which struck the US South-East has reportedly surpassed 120 as of Monday (US time).
The storm has become one of the deadliest hurricanes to make landfall on the US mainland in the modern era.
Deaths were reported by officials in the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
Falling trees was the biggest cause of death among preliminary reports.
The White House believes up to 600 people remain missing, according to US media.
Hundreds of people remain missing, and search and rescue operations were underway Monday in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee, officials told US media.
Trained teams are responding from across the country, said Diana Marty, overseeing search operations in Pinellas County, Florida, where at least nine deaths have been reported because of the historic storm surge Helene pushed in along the coast.
Social media platforms, like Threads, are full of messages, video and images from people looking for loved ones in the areas cut off from the internet.
Cataclysmic flooding devastated communities along the Blue Ridge mountains from Georgia into Tennessee.
Helene, and a wave of rain ahead of the hurricane, dumped an overwhelming 10 to 30 inches, which forced raging torrents of water from steep ridges into narrow valleys.
North Carolina was especially hard hit.
The confirmed death toll in Buncombe County alone climbed to 35 and was expected to rise, officials said. About 600 missing persons reports remain although many are expected to be resolved when communications are restored, authorities said.
The number of victims is expected to grow.
In Unicoi, Tennessee, where one death was confirmed on Sunday, Myron Hughes, a spokesperson for the Unicoi County Emergency Management Agency, said: “We do expect this number to change.”
Since 1950, only eight hurricanes killed more than 100 lives in the mainland 48 states.
Hurricane Katrina, which struck Mississippi and Louisiana in August 2005, remains the deadliest storm since 1950; it killed 1833 people and remains the third most deadly dating back to the 1800s.
