Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday pledged to rebuild western North Carolina after devastating flooding caused by Helene last week.

“We’re going to work 24/7 until they’re back on their feet,” he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1.

Hundreds of roads in the region remain impassable and residents lack electricity, cellphone service and water five days since the storm blew past. Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for.

Search and rescue operations are still going on, Cooper said, adding that 55 fatalities have been confirmed. He expected that number to rise.

“We are working very hard to save lives,” he said. “That is the no. 1 priority right now.”

He said water treatment plants that were knocked out during the floods were being evaluated to determine how to rapidly bring them back online.

“We want to get these water systems back up and running as quickly and as safely as we possibly can,” he said.

Cellphone providers have been bringing in deployable devices to help re-establish service, he said, adding that the number of power outages has been reduced to just over 250,000 as of Wednesday morning. Acute hospitals had been able to get off generators and back on the power grid, Cooper said.

“Some progress is being made,” he said, “A lot of work is still to go on.”

President Joe Biden planned to visit western North Carolina on Wednesday to survey the damage, and North Carolina lawmakers have been calling for ramped-up federal assistance.

“We’re going to need significant money in order to build western North Carolina back in a more resilient way … hundreds of millions of dollars, more than that likely,” Cooper said.