Abandoned vehicles caked with mud. Mountainous rural roads and slices of highways washed away into rivers. Parking lots filled with people desperately searching for cellphone service, trying to tell relatives and friends they are OK — or wanting to find out who is not.

Road closures caused by surging rivers and disrupted communications in the wake of Hurricane Helene on Saturday isolated western North Carolina in what officials are calling a "catastrophic natural disaster.

Landslides, people in shelters, road closures, wind gusts, rainfall: a start to North Carolina’s count of damage done.