PERRY, Fla. — Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and knocked out power to millions of people.

”I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).

From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it ”looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. All those closures delayed the start of the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel because the Buccaneers’ drive to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours.

There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday. And the rescues continued into the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.

”To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.

Asheville resident Mario Moraga said it was ”heartbreaking” to see the damage in the Biltmore Village neighborhood and neighbors have been going house to house to check on each other and offer support.

Experts say there is ”very low risk” for fraud with ballot collecting by third parties. In a 2018 congressional election in North Carolina, a political operative for the Republican candidate faced allegations of running an illegal ”ballot harvesting” operation in Bladen County, with the operative and his helpers illegally collecting absentee ballots before turning them in. The results of that election were thrown out and a new election was held. In 2020, then California Attorney General Hector Becerra ordered Republicans to remove unofficial ballot drop boxes from churches, gun shops and other locations, warning that those behind such ”vote tampering” could face prosecution.

What is allowed and not allowed in ballot gathering efforts?

In California, those gathering ballots are allowed to collect them and either mail them or turn them in to the county registrar of voters office in person – within three days of receiving the ballots or before polls close on Election Day. Those authorized to collect ballots are not allowed to place ballot boxes in any location and they may not receive compensation based on the number of ballots returned. In all states, those collecting ballots are prohibited from tampering with ballots, electioneering or coercing someone to vote a certain way or change their vote.

Are churches allowed to gather ballots?

Churches in states like California can collect ballots, issue voter guides and even hold candidate debates, provided they don’t endorse a particular candidate, post all candidates’ positions and invite all candidates to the forum. A 1954 law called the Johnson Amendment, named for its principal sponsor, then Sen. Lyndon Johnson, states that tax-exempt nonprofit organizations including churches are ”are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” Doing so could jeopardize a church’s tax exemption status. However, this law does not prevent nonpartisan voter-education activities, voter registration drives and publishing ”issue guides” for voters or even arranging transportation for voters to get to polling places — activities that Black churches with members who tend to vote Democrat have engaged in for decades. Pastors are also free to preach on social and political issues that are issues of concerns from a faith perspective.

The contents of a suspicious package that caused an evacuation of the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office has been deemed non-hazardous.

The office was evacuated Friday after a package arrived there with the return address of “United States Traitor Elimination Army.”

The white powder inside the package was tested by the Minnesota Department of Health and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and both concluded it was not hazardous, Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office said Saturday.

In a statement, Simon said: “We are thankful for the quick response by our law enforcement partners to ensure the staff members working in our office were safe. We are also grateful to the Minnesota Department of Health, which completed the initial analysis late into the evening on September 27.”

The Health Department is continuing to run tests, Simon’s office said, and the incident is being investigated by the FBI, postal inspectors and the State Patrol.

Last week, offices in 15 other states received similar packages that also contained a mysterious white powder. Those incidents remain under investigation.

The Secretary of State’s Office has not released details about the size or appearance of the suspect package.