Hurricane Helene updates: Death toll surpasses 230 as rescue efforts continue

The White House continues to push back on the false narrative from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to run out of money for Hurricane Helene relief because of funding to programs that support migrants.

"This is FALSE," senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates wrote in a memo circulated to reporters on Friday. "No disaster relief funding at all was used to support migrants housing and services. None. At. All."

Bates said funding for migrant services is run through a separate spigot at Customs and Border Protection, and ultimately administered by FEMA, but that it's in "no way related" to FEMA's hurricane recovery efforts, which are plentiful for immediate Helene response.

"FEMA has the funds it needs for immediate response and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene," he wrote.

FEMA does need more funding to sustain that support, though.

"To be clear: the Biden-Harris Administration has sought additional disaster funds for a year to ensure that FEMA has the resources it needs in the face of increasingly frequent severe weather events across the country," Bates said. "We’re glad to see Congressional Republicans finally joining our calls."

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said after touring hurricane damage that Congress should allocate more money to FEMA, one week after he voted against $18.8 billion for the agency.

-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett

Hundreds of thousands of customers in the South are still without power over one week after Hurricane Helene made landfall.

More than 277,000 customers are in the dark in South Carolina and 230,000 are without power in North Carolina.

Another 200,000 are without power in Georgia.

"This has been a historic storm. We've never seen anything like this," Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton said. “The biggest challenge has been the unprecedented flooding. It’s not just poles and wires that are down -- it's the backbone of our system, the transmission infrastructure and substations."

Duke Energy has a "crew of 21,000 line workers, vegetation crews and more across the Carolinas," Norton said.

In North Carolina, crews have repaired more than 1.2 million power outages and are on track to restore an additional 27,000 customers by Friday night and another 69,000 in the hardest-hit areas by Sunday evening, Norton said on Friday.

The water line is almost to the top of the substation that serves Biltmore Village, North Carolina, and the substation will take three to four months to repair, Norton said.

Crews have wheeled in a 200,000-pound mobile substation to serve in the interim, Norton said, noting that it was a "slow, meticulous" process to get the mobile substation to the region because crews had to make sure the bridges hit by Helene could withstand it.

The mobile substation "will effectively allow us to bypass the substation for the next three to four months as we level it and build it again on higher ground," Norton said. "Those customers will have power even as we rebuild that substation."

The remnants of Hurricane Helene were not the only factor that contributed to the severity of the flooding that struck the mountain community of Asheville, North Carolina.

Several conditions in the region, including a precursor rain event and the topography of the land, gave rise to deadly flash flooding, experts told ABC News.

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has launched a web page dedicated to pushing back on misinformation about the federal government's response to Hurricane Helene.

On the page, located on FEMA's website, FEMA tackles rumors like one claiming the agency doesn't have enough money for disasters, which the agency says it does.

Other rumors the agency debunks are claims FEMA is asking for cash and turning away volunteers. The agency says they'd never ask for money.

Another rumor getting attention on social media is that victims of Hurricane Helene only qualify for $750. FEMA debunks that rumor, saying people who apply for relief will get $750 for immediate needs. But the agency says people will qualify for more as their application moves through the agency.

-ABC News' Luke Barr