John we are tracking President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Movement as they visit some of the communities hardest hit by Hurricane Helene. President biden will take an aerial tour in western North Carolina. He just touched down. And in moments we do expect Vice President harris to land in georgia, where she will survey damage there. A couple days after former President Trump did. Im John Roberts in washington. Good happy with us today. Gillian things for having me. Im Gillian Turner in for sandra smith. Towns in North Carolina completely unrecognizable. Especially the western part of the state. Asheville Mayor R faced of their resources. The pictures you can see right there on your screen proved that is the case. Emergency crews are working to reach the isolated communities that have been devastated by catastrophic flooding. Residents there are heartbroken, desperately pleading for help. There has been landslides. Our valley got wiped out. They had to rescue people, the National Guard had to come in and take people out. I have been a resident, and we never experienced anything like this. We need things like baby formula, baby food, pet supplies, we need outreach. We are trying to do the best we can but we just need help. John fox Weathers Jane Minar is live in boone, North Carolina. Jane, what are you seeing . Yeah, john, so we traveled 2f boone, trying to get to these rural Mountain Towns because that is truly where there is a ton of devastation. The scale of this is really hard to put into words. In cove creek, North Carolina, this was the centerpiece of this community. You had soccer fields, a track off to the distance. That is now filled with debris. Power lines that have been pushed by the cove creek, that once was a small stream, rose more than 10 feet, became a raging river. You had cars and rvs that were pushed downstream, mangled amongst the mess of those power poles. This is the playground where the local day care center, 3yearold ada came to talk to me this morning. She had her Rain Boots on and her Gardening Apron and gloves, wanting to pick up some of these pieces. Her motto, any little bit helps. But unfortunately, this has become the second deadliest storm behind katrina, was now more than 170 deaths being reported from helene. Many of those in western North Carolina. Weve seen nine men, horseback, going up into these hollers, trying to do welfare checks, checking in on schools, children, making sure they are all in a safe place. I spoke to one woman with me today who said that she is worried that her children will be back into her School Districts four weeks, if not months to come based on the destruction of what we are seeing here in these rural communities. I think the playground is really what pulls at me, when you know that kids were using this. You have tennis courts. The stream lower, babbling off into the distance, but you have feet of debris thats going to take a long time to clean up. John no question about that. There is just so much H Hardship out in that part of the state. Jane minar, thank you. Hurricanes are one thing because there is a lot of wind damage, storm surge damage, but you can rebuild when something is knocked down by wind or waves. But there with 10 feet of mud in some parts of Downtown Areas of these little towns or the center of these little towns, where do you even start . Gillian you know, talking to the fire cheap earlier, i was also thinking about how in boone in particular they have 19, 20,000 people who live there, a lot live off the tourism industry. About to peak, normally would, fall tourism is incredibly beautiful and special part of the country, everybody wants to see the fall foliage. People there, many people are running restaurants, shops, air b bs, that really only get going for three or four months of the year and now they have no income potentially all year. John you have to feel for all of those folks who literally lost everything, buried under tons and tons and tons of mud. As jane was pointing out, trying to find little trinkets here and there of memories. It is hard to find. There is such utter devastation. Gillian hoping i guess for some kind of remnant of what your life was like before this horrible storm. John terrible. Gillian there is also this, our other top stories, tensions running high in the Middle East after Irans Bombardment of israel yesterday. Trey yingst recently embedded with the idf, units moved across the border into Southern Lebanon. Trey is the first journalist to go into the country with the idf since the conflict erected between the two sides. He joins us now from the northern city of haifa, israel, with an exclusive look, also looking back, we saw yesterday just before this time, trey, at your hotel, as those missiles were incoming, sort of look like right over your head. Yeah, gillian, good afternoon. As is really a forces launched a Ground Operation to Southern Lebanon this week we were amongs to enter. Heres a look at a Hezbollah Position dug into the side of a mountain. Right now israeli forces are conducting a Ground Invasion into Southern Lebanon. We are embedded within elite Commando Unit that just arrived at this Hezbollah Position. Carved into the side of a mountain. Its in tunnels and rooms like this, the israelis say, they are Finding Irani Weapons Smuggled T To Syria and then into Southern Lebanon to get to this Hezbollah Position we had to cross minefields and hike across uneven terrain, pocked with craters, the result of israeli bombardment of Southern Lebanon. All of this began on october 8th, when hezbollah followed hamas and started attacking Northern Israel in the hours after the October 7th massacre. Now israel says they are conducting these limited raids across the border to destroy these Hezbollah Positions and allow israeli civilians to return to their homes in the northern part of the country. The israeli Ground And Air campaign against Southern Lebanon continues today. We know that hundreds of hezbollah fighters have been killed in the process, along with hundreds of civilians. While we follow this developing story, we can also report at this hour that eight israeli soldiers were killed earlier today in battles with hezbollah. Gillian . Gillian trey, thank you for that coverage. Thank you for staying up late to be with us and for your pretty much continuous coverage over the last 24 hours. Great job. John . John lets bring and retire u. S. Army brigadier general Anthony Tate of for more on this. General, good to see you. What do you suspect israel will do in response to the Massacre Strike . First i want to say trey does a great job. Transportation secretary in North Carolina, my heart goes to the people of western North Carolina. I know that part of the state well. What israel is going to do next i think is going to continue the Netanyahu Plan of eradicating the means of war from those tunnels that trey just showed, and continue his Stepbystep Process of pushing the extended range of the weapons back in lebanon so they Cant Range the people that live in galilee and Golan Heights area. John do you think it will be limited to that or will they strike back against iran itself . Iran use to attack israel solely through its proxies. That all changed on April The 13th when it attacked directly and it happened again yesterday. Israeli sit back and say, okay they have three fights on their hands. Hamas In The South come hezbollah in the north, and iran as john and the houthis and all of the she a Militia Groups funded by these unfrozend oil that iran is trading with China And Russia when President Trump was in office, abraham of course, all of that unwound by Biden And harris. They are able to build these tunnels and stock weapons. Israel is very capable and less time like you mentioned, 35 came in and did a Pinprick Strike as a demonstration of what they could do. I anticipate that israel will be targeting leadership, targeting nuclear facility. John we know what the Trump Administration Policy towards iran was, maximum pressure, as you said. The policy by the Biden Administration seems to fall in lines with what obama did. He told around several times, particularly in relation to this, any kind of retaliation for haniya or nasrallah, dont, looks like iran gave in the middle and did. They have put us in this situation, trying to appease, and that allowed iran to have the resources to do what they are doing right now. John it seems the Biden Administration has pursued a policy of appeasement with iran hoping it can craft some sort of reentry into a nuclear deal that likely doesnt include anything about irans policies in the Middle East or its ballistic missile program, both of which were on the table in the trump administration. The Harrisbiden Strategy is maximum pressure on israel, what they have created is the environment for all of these shia Militia Groups, the houthis to those in gaza, hamas and hezbollah and the Militia Groups throughout Syria And Israel or in a rack to attack u. S. Interests in israel, and thats funded by all these funds that we discussed, and so israel has to get at the heart of that, and Harris And Biden should have had a fullscale, maximum Pressure Campaign with diplomacy, information messaging, military, economic, all of that work in a tandem like we had under President Trump that choked off the ability for iran to provide these supplies to those that want to do harm to israel and u. S. Interests. John Secretary Of State Antony Blinken had what appeared to be a poorly timed Oped Article in Foreign Affairs on tuesday in which he said, in part, quote, the Biden A Administration Strategy has put the united states in a much stronger geopolitical Position Today than it was four years ag. This Twin Pillared strategy they believe was the best to disabuse competitors of their assumptions that the united states was declining and diffident. I mean, putin invaded ukraine. October 7th happened. Iran attacked israel directly. And who knows what she is going to do about taiwan and this article comes out. Jake sullivans article, had to change Foreign Policy. The relations have never been better and peace is breaking out all over and we have hamas attacking israel on that horrible day. On October 7th. They are so out of touch. They dont have the levers of government working together to create strategy to secure our national interests and those of our allies, and that is the bottom line. Harris and Biden Are bad for Foreign Policy and bad for domestic policy accordingly. John general tata, great to see you in d. C. And our hearts go out to the folks in North Carolina. Appreciate it. Thank you. Gillian . Gillian moments from now, j. D. Vance set to speak in michigan about his plan to tackle rising costs. John plus homes destroyed, personal belongings gone, lives lost and unaccounted for. We will talk with the Hurricane Helene survivor who took these photos of his home coming up next. 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You are seeing pictures of the home of someone who lost just about everything from the Look And Sound of things. He is now trying to look forward in the hopes of eventually rebuilding. He joins us now to talk about this devastating experience. Ic, is that diane . Thats my wife. Gillian thank you for taking time with us. This must be incredibly difficult. Just want to hear about what you have been going through, what you have seen and heard and experienced the last, i dont know, is it six days now . It feels like forever. It does feel like forever. It happened so quickly. The water rose so quickly from both creeks. That within minutes, our house was 4foot of water in our house. Gillian wow. My Wife And Granddaughter had to be rescued from the back of the house, and i was trying, there was a lady next to us by herself and she was standing at the back doors i was trying to tell her there is help on the way. They wouldnt let me go over there because the water was so deep. Gillian is your granddaughter okay . They are both fine. They got them out with a canoe. Gillian oh, thank god. Local fireman, good friend of ours. Gillian bo. Oh, guys, im so sorry. If you want to take a break, dont feel pressured to keep going. We are fine. I just want to say one thing. Gillian please. We would try to clean up ourselves but you have to go quick or youre just going going to lose everything. Samaritans first sent 50 people over and gutted our house and saved our house. They are bringing us food, bringing food and helping where they can. God is good. We are not hurt, but it is just going to be a long road back if we can build it back. Gillian a long road but if you have all of that support, and it sounds like a wonderful, loving family, you are better equipped to do it, may be, most of us. What is an immediate first step for you guys . What are you hoping to achieve in the coming hours before it gets dark out today . Well, they are still cutting, when they haul the mud out, they go halfway up the Sheet Rock and cut it out, and when they get through, samaritans first told us it would be contract ready which means we can start building back. Gillian oh, wow, okay. We didnt have Flood Insurance so the expenses going to be on us and going to have to figure out how we do that. I mean, as bad as it was for us, i know theres other people that are even worse, and down the road here we had a neighbor get killed at her house, so we are just thankful we are alive. Gillian what about your i am so sorry about your neighbor. Any belongings you have managed to salvage that are not part of your house . Any personal effects, where are all of those . We got a few shoes, a few clothes, not a whole lot. We look around, and i show you whats left, they took it out of the house. Can we go around . Gillian see if our photog, there we go. Oh, wow. It, it. Gillian wow they had to get it out so we could save the house. But all the neighbors here are in the same situation. Its just devastation. Gillian of course, of course. We are obviously thinking of you. We are praying for you. I cant imagine how incredibly hard