The last time Drew McLean’s parents saw him, he was marveling at the power of Tropical Storm Helene as it washed over their home in the mountains of North Carolina.

He and his mother found that a large tree had split in the front yard and another had been pushed by surging water into Mr. McLean’s car, tipping it on its side.

Amid the chaos, Mr. McLean, 45, offered his mother a comforting thought: “God is still on his throne,” he said.

Mr. McLean has been missing for a week now, ever since he apparently walked off into the storm last Friday.

Sitting on the back porch of their secluded home in the hills of Black Mountain on Thursday, his parents were holding out hope that he would be found, even as they wiped tears from their eyes and increasingly feared the worst.

The McLeans are in a fraught and fragile state shared by many across western North Carolina and other regions crushed by Hurricane Helene. The vastness of the devastation, coupled with a lack of phone and internet service after the storm, has left families unsure of what happened to their loved ones.

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