Folks in North Carolina stay in touch the old-fashioned way after Helene cuts roads, power, phones [Video]

Isolated and without electricity or phone service since Hurricane Helene inflicted devastation across the Southeast nearly a week ago, residents in the mountains of western North Carolina are relying on old-fashioned ways of communicating and coping.At the town square in Black Mountain, local leaders stood atop a picnic table shouting updates about when power might be restored. One woman took notes to pass along to her neighbors. Alongside a fencerow, a makeshift message board listed the names of people still missing. In other areas, mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes. Residents collected water from creeks and cooked over camp stoves. And across the region, people were looking after each other.President Joe Biden, after surveying the area by helicopter on Wednesday, praised the Democratic governor of North Carolina and the Republican governor of South Carolina for their responses to the storm, saying that in the wake of disasters, “we put …