Mules are helping deliver supplies to North Carolina residents devastated by Hurricane Helene, according to Mountain Mule Packer Ranch.

In a series of posts to Facebook Monday, the ranch said it is working to coordinate packs of mules to deliver supplied to areas affected by the storm.

Mike Toberer told the AP he decided to bring a dozen of his mules to deliver food, water and diapers to hard-to-reach mountainous areas.

The ranchers and mules “headed out” Monday morning, “and will continue to reply as quickly as possible to those in need,” his posts said. “We are planning to head to Weaverville, NC…but available to go to other areas of need as well,” said the post.

“We’ll take our chainsaws, and we’ll push those mules through,” he told the AP, noting each mule can carry about 200 pounds of supplies.

Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is located in Raeford, about 110 miles east of Charlotte and about 245 miles from Weaverville.

“We have two fully loaded trucks and 20’ stock trailers heading to” western North Carolina for assistance, according to the post.

“We have been overwhelmed with the amount of support and encouragement received about our efforts to pack supplies in by mule trains to those affected by Hurricane Helene,” a post said.

Approximately 600 people were still unaccounted for in Asheville, North Carolina, Monday afternoon as the city suffers from washed out roads and bridges, cell service outages and blackouts, the mayor told CNN.

Extensive damage to roads and infrastructure has isolated many remote communities and prevented crews from reaching residents with vital supplies, Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said on “The Source” Monday night.

The devastation wrought by Helene in the city is “catastrophic,” the mayor said. “The pictures don’t do it justice”

President Joe Biden will fly over the city on Wednesday to survey the damage, she added.

Intense rain events like Hurricane Helene are making the idea of a “1-in-100-year flood event” obsolete, according to a 2023 report from the First Street Foundation, a non-profit focused on weather risk research.

The report found half the American population lives in a county where a 1-in-100-year flood is at least twice as likely now as past years, coming once every 50 years, on average, rather than 100.

First Street found parts of Western North Carolina hit by Helene could get a 1-in-100 year flood every 11 to 25 years. Stronger storms could impact all areas of the country. In much of the Northeast, the Ohio River Basin, Northwestern California, the Texas Gulf Coast and the Mountain West, the rainfall depths for a 1-in-100-year event could happen at least every 5 to 10 years.

Hurricane Helene will rank among the deadliest hurricanes to strike the mainland United States in the past 50 years – and the death toll, which is already more than 100, will likely continue to climb.

Hurricane Katrina tops the list with at least 1,833 fatalities from the storm and subsequent flooding. Hurricane Ian, which struck southeast Florida in 2022, caused 150 direct and indirect fatalities.

Helene is currently third on the list, already surpassing Hurricane Irma from 2017, which killed 92 in the US, mostly in Florida.

Hurricane Harvey and Superstorm Sandy resulted in between 60-75 fatalities in the US.

Note: This list only includes mainland US hurricanes, so Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is not included.

Another storm could develop this week in the western Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico, which isn’t what anyone in the US wants to hear in the wake of Helene.

But unlike Helene, this potential storm could have more obstacles in its path to development.

A large and disorganized area of low pressure with showers and storms over the western Caribbean has been given a medium chance of developing into a tropical system in the next seven days, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Environmental conditions could become conducive for gradual development, and a tropical depression could form later this week or this weekend while the system is over the southern Gulf of Mexico or northwestern Caribbean Sea, according to the NHC. Helene first organized over the northwestern Caribbean about a week ago.

Weather models are hinting at a possible tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico early next week, though it is too early to be certain. Until an area of low pressure forms, any forecast modeling on the potential storm will likely continue to vary widely with its ultimate strength and track.

Given this, anyone near the Gulf is advised to monitor the forecast.