11,779. Thank you very much. Jeff zeleny. And thanks to all of you as always, ac36ts now tonight on 360 mile after mile destruction, heartbreak, and you have live reports and where helene hit the hardest and people from near and far who are answering the call for help. North carolina's governor joins us. So does chef jose andres also both presidential candidates address the disaster which won the former president playing politics with the relief effort by claiming the biden administration is playing politics with the relief effort. Plus israel ramps up airstrikes on lebanon and launches. Would they call a limited ground operation? good evening. Thanks for joining us. What began with exploding pagers and walkietalkies than the israeli air force killing hezbollah's leadership is now entering a new phase. Cnn's jeremy diamond is on the ground in northern israel right now. What are you learning tonight? is that israel begins this ground operation for months now, we have wondered whether or not israel would expand this conflict against hezbollah, whether it might send ground troops into the sovereign country of lebanon to go after hezbollah. And tonight, anderson, for the first time, the israeli military is confirming that they have indeed started a ground operation inside southern lebanon to go after hezbollah positions near the israel lebanon border. Now these really military is taking pains to try and describe this as a limited ground operation in a statement, they said that this is limited localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence to go after hezbollah targets forgets but make no mistake. Anderson, what we are seeing tonight is israeli troops in a very official capacity for the first time since the 2006 war with lebanon, sending ground troops into lebanon and going after hezbollah targets. And that is of course, a very significant escalation following several weeks of escalatory actions by the israeli military, a slew of very heavy airstrikes in southern eastern lebanon, as well as in the lebanese capital of beirut. And of course, the killing of hezbollah's leader hassan nasrallah. But israeli officials who i've spoken to anderson say that they see this as the moment to go after hezbollah at a time when they are in disarray, when they have been significantly weakened by those airstrikes. And so tonight, anderson all around us, we are hearing that ground operation in action. We have been hearing the helicopters overhead. We have been hearing outgoing artillery fire from very near our position, just a couple of miles away from the israeli border. And then over the hill in lebanon, we have been and seeing some of those explosions happening, plumes of smoke, flares as israeli ground forces under cover of night advance into lebanon. Do you know how large a force israel has amassed to conduct this operation? well, we know that over the course of the last several weeks, the israeli military has increased its force along the border relatively significantly. They've redirected the 98th division, which was a key fighting force throughout much of this war in gaza to the northern border. They also activated to reserve brigades. That's thousands of troops being moved to the northern border as we were driving here today, we saw about 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers are raid along a highway headed for northern israel. And of course, there are forces that we are not seeing in this area as well. We don't know exactly how large the forces that and he's actually going into lebanon right now, israeli officials who i've spoken to declined to get into exactly how many forces there are, but they are trying to emphasize that this is limited. They say that it is targeted to take out immediate threats along the border, including the threat of hezbollah carrying out some kind of incursion into northern israel. One senior israeli official also telling me that they do not intend to carry out any kind of longterm occupation of southern lebanon, but they're also not saying anderson exactly how long those israeli troops are going to be remaining inside lebanon, how long this operation will last or how deep into lebanon they intend to operate? jeremy diamond. Thanks. Will check back with you later this hour. Also talked to tom friedman of the new york times. Now, back home, the aftermath of hurricane helene, not so long ago, the foothills and mountains of west western north carolina are considered a place to flee from dangerous storms like helene aisle today, the evidence that it's no longer a storm haven is everywhere you look, including this vacations bob, this pictures from sunday, it was left. This is what was left of it and sunday all across the southeast in georgia, tennessee, the carolinas, the destruction, much of it from so much rain falling on already rain, so ground would be almost unimaginable if not from the video coming in from asheville and chimney rock, north carolina where everything from all allies to highways have been destroyed. And parts of the area cut off from help so far the death toll across the area hit by helene stands at 128 and climbing many more on accounted for right now, president biden will travel to north carolina on wednesday. And as we mentioned, both presidential candidates weighed in today before dealing with that, though the latest and what is like in some of the hardest hit places, unions, isabel rosales begins our coverage this widespread of view from the air brings into focus the full scope of the destruction wrought by hurricane helene have you, trees and downed power lines are blocking major roadways? hampering the delivery of badlyneeded supplies, and overturn semitruck laying upside down in the river and numerous landslides all spotted from above cnn flew by helicopter with a nonprofit serving inaccessible towns badly in need of aid on the ground in black mountain outside of asheville city manager, josh herald says, it could take years to get over this devastation is catastrophic black mountain may never look the same again. It's just total destruction, but just getting by for now, the focus for so many, it's hours of waiting for gas at the few pumps that are still running and, asheville lines of cars waiting for basic supplies let's just rough as hard as the in the city like this, some families, celsius, then they've run out of drinking water without electricity. Their food is rotting gary o'dell is sharing everything he's got his home with his daughter who lost it all to the catastrophic floods and even lifesaving oxygen tanks with his neighbor. My nextdoor neighbor ran out of oxygen. He's worse shape than i am. That's my problem. I've got lung cancer now too. And you don't, you don't realize oxygen is is very important nonprofits teaming up to serve 2000 residents in the first four hours how are you guys doing? this is one of the first semitrucks full of desperately needed supplies to arrive in asheville this is the most devastating thing i've ever seen her whole city think that the loss of life fact that if you don't have cash, you can't get anything. We've gotten to stores, waters out, isis out people slept overnight at gas stations like i feel like we've never seen this before. And three days into this disaster, north carolinians praying that more help is on the way. Isabel rosales joins us now, from asheville, just talk a little bit more about what you've been seeing on the ground there biltmore village in a place so loved and known by tourists. They would have been entering their busiest season, right now in october and said they're dealing with this. I mean, this is a gas station it would've been so busy right around this time and now it's just this muddy mess and random debris like this this right here reads still tank for oil burner fuels and other combustible liquids. So a bunch of gas tanks, fuel tanks all over the place down power lines, tree limbs, all sort of stuff but anderson, what caught my attention today was a desperate need of so many that i spoke with thanks so we need for everyday life, water, food, baby formula, no diapers. The need is tremendous. Neighbors are helping one another, but they're taking this day by day and as they are trying to do that, there are still people stuck in these mountain towns. I've seen helicopters just filling up the sky all day long. That's the only way that they can get to them attempting to get them out, or at least help them go day by day by giving them those items just so they can figure things out. Anderson regardless. Thanks very much joining us right now is asheville assistant fire chief jeremy knighten appreciate you being with us. What is an am just so sorry for what you and the community is going through. Can you just talk about what you have been seeing about ongoing rescue operations, what's the situation on the ground now? absolutely we've got our hasty searches done. Now we're doing more targeted searches as the water recedes were having a really coordinated response with our county and state partners. Also the federal government and the fema urban search and rescue teams are here on the ground working with us, integrating with us, and we're doing a systematic search from the some of the worst hit areas to our east all the way through it's we're moving but we're having to move at the speed that safe. And where we can get into these places is the topography is already working against us with the steep terrain. And you add on the mud the rain, the water it's a mess do you do like grid searches? i mean, is that in an area where the topography is you said is is really steep and mountainous. That's got to be really difficult it is luckily, we have some our drones are integrated with the urban search and rescue teams as well as the locals for that local situational awareness and so we've lived in this community for a long time. We work here however, it looks way different than it did four days ago so even though we've lived here, the changes that that water and the speed of that that water has created in our city. It's almost unrecognizable and then my right and bullying the water has largely i mean, has the water most and proceeded back to normal back to the streams and the rivers that normally is yes. However, in many cases the river traveled is traveling a different way than it did last tuesday, where the river was on the right side of the road in many cases, now the river is through the road and completely on the left we're also dealing with mudslides. And then just the mud we're having to cut several trees that are in intertwined with power lines just to get access so that we can get in there and get a full picture of what's going on. And just in terms of resources that you need i mean, i know you said you're working a lot of different partner and people from local, state, and federal governments do have what you need need of resources obviously water food fuel power connectivity and we were making plans now, the local communities all through the mountains are banding together. And we're working in a coordinated manner to get that stuff resources and beginning to pump resources every day more and more into our community. We have help from other places that are here, organizing what that helped looks like, and making it. So were organized and efficient. And we can really speed the service delivery up but our folks have been at this now for four days. So a lot of the locals here, we've got firefighters here that haven't seen their families. We've got some firefighters, their families have gone to different locations and were they can just come here and work. There's a lot of responders, public works our water resources that are all standing on the front lines that are that are personal sacrifices that are making this happen along with those partners, assistant chief knighten you must be exhausted and everybody there must be. But i appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and i wish you the best alright. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Well, neither our chef jose andres nor his organization world central kitchen probably needs much in the way of an introduction by now, their remarkably quick to arrive on scene where human need is greatest feeding hungry people trying to help bring local communities back to life. This time no difference is teams are in georgia, florida, tennessee nessie, and north carolina. Chef andres trump just now from asheville jose. What are you seeing on the ground were how were you deployed well, anderson, everything everybody has spoken before me very much describes what's going on but they want to say that obviously the best is that i always say in the worst moments of humanity, the best of humanity comes up i only see communities coming together i see obviously the work that fema is doing, the work that the national guard is doing, the operation. I see in the airport. Here in nashville is something quite frankly, i've never seen in many operations in the last few 15 years that they've been dedicated to this. And we are talking about many helicopters, big one, she knows these events, bringing a lot of goods into asheville delivering to the communities. This is what was andragogy and we've been doing we have already i'm here speaking from one of our restaurant partners one of the chefs that is being with us in many other operations around the world, who was going to say that this chef, jamie mcdonald, hearing his restaurant, was going to open his restaurant not only to feed the field, but to feed the people in need in nashville, we are reaching communities that are almost impossible to reach by car here's where the biggest need is obviously the destruction of the roads is real. The breaches that broken makes very difficult to get by car and that's why he's very smart to be in this moment reaching those communities by helicopter arriving with food, arriving with water, arriving with baby formula it's so much more need. But overall we need to remember that these very much, we are in nashville itself on day three, day four, only i do believe that the aid is going to be reaching everybody. Obviously, when somebody loses their home, when somebody loses their lifestyles, when you said he the destruction around is very hard, but they do believe because the people of north carolina, that people are as we large so shawn mason, they come together so well daybyday things will get better. We always need to be thinking that tomorrow will be better. That's why everybody comes together to look at the future. Sure. Where hope is what wins the day. The model of your organization really was, was when she created was mobilizing local restaurants that might be shut down but my the kitchen might still work to make food that can then feed and you can bring to surrounding populations. Does that model work? in asheville right now? i mean, you said you're in a in a restaurant right now. You're using that same model here o