Early in-person voting was set to begin statewide Thursday in the presidential battleground of North Carolina, including in mountainous areas where thousands of potential voters still lack power and clean running water after Hurricane Helene's epic flooding.

Extensive flooding hit Asheville, North Carolina, on September 28 and 29, with satellite imagery showing the impacts of Hurricane Helene. Video posted on Storyful via Planet Labs showed the mammoth of a storm move into the area leaving a catastrophic wake in its path.

Elections officials in western North Carolina originally planned to open 80 early voting sites for the general election, storm damage from Helene and road closures have reduced that number to 76

Hurricane Helene was a historic storm that will be on the minds of those affected for years to come. During the evening of Sept. 26, the storm made landfall along Florida’s Big Bend area as a category 4 with wind speeds of 140 mph.

North Carolina election officials are scrambling to expand their early voting programs to address fallout from Hurricane Helene.

Early in-person voting kicks off in 24 hours in the key battleground state North Carolina, but a portion of the state is still struggling to bounce back weeks after Helene.