Hurricane Helene caused dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in damage across much of the southeastern United States. More than 3 million customers entered the weekend without power and, for some, with an ongoing threat of flooding.
Hurricane Helene, which has now weakened to become a post-tropical cyclonelanded in the Big Bend area of Florida as acategory 4 hurricanelate Thursday afternoon, with winds of 140 mph. It then moved quickly across Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, uprooting trees, smashing homes, causing streams and rivers to burst their banks, and straining dams.
Western North Carolina has been virtually cut off from the world because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. Hundreds of rescues have taken place, but none have been more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in eastern Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were evacuated by helicopter from the roof of a hospital surrounded by the waters of a swollen river.
According to the National Hurricane Center, the cyclone is expected to remain over the Tennessee Valley Saturday and Sunday. Multiple flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect across parts of the southern and central Appalachians, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.
Among the 44 people at least Who died in the stormthere are three firefighters, a woman and her one-month-old twins, as well as an 89-year-old woman whose house was hit by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
In North Carolinaa lake overflowed from a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate fears of the dam breaching. The people of Newport (Tennessee), a town of about 7,000 residents, were also evacuated due to concerns over a nearby dam, although authorities later said the structure had not failed.
Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that left four people seriously injured.
Atlanta received a record 11 inches of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in two days since records began in 1878, the Georgia State Climatologist’s Office said on the social platform X. Some neighborhoods were so flooded that you could only see the roofs of cars sticking out of the water.
Moody’s Analytics said it expected material damage in the range of 13.5 to 23.5 billion euros.
Effects of global warming
Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow these storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and developing into powerful cyclones, sometimes within hours.
The Big Bend of Florida is a part of the state where salt marshes and pine forests stretch to the horizon, and where the housing developments and shopping centers that have carved up much of the state’s coastline are largely absent.
It’s a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her 4-year-old chihuahua, Lucy, could afford to live just steps from the beach on her cleaning salary.
At least, until his house was taken away by Hélène.
On Friday afternoon, Ms Hartway walked down her street near Ezell Beach, looking for where the storm may have dumped her house.
“She’s missing. I don’t know where she is. I can’t find her,” she said of her house.
Born and raised in rural Taylor County, Ms. Hartway says there is no place in the world she would rather be, even after Helen. But she has seen more affluent residents, coming from out of state, buy second homes here. She wonders how many of them will sell – and what will happen to residents who have nowhere to go.
“There are so many people here that they don’t have a place to go. This is all they had,” she said.
“If the water rises above the level of the stove, we won’t have much room to breathe”
The community has been hit hard by three hurricanes since August 2023.
The five people who died in a Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents had been asked to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, sheriff of Pinellas County, in the St. Petersburg area. Some of those who remained had to take refuge in their attics to escape the rising waters. According to him, the toll could rise as teams go door to door in flooded areas.
Other deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who lost their lives when trees struck their trucks. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin reported at least one death in his state.
When the water reached knee level in Kera O’Neil’s home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape.
“There’s a point where you say, ‘If the water rises above the level of the stove, we won’t have much room to breathe,'” she said, recalling that her sister and They waded through chest-deep water with one cat in a plastic crate and another in a cardboard box.
President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency visited. The agency deployed more than 1,500 personnel who participated in 400 rescues by late Friday morning.
Authorities urged trapped people to call rescuers and not walk on floodwaters, as they can be dangerous due to the presence of live electrical wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.
The hurricane made landfall near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 30 kilometers northwest of where Hurricane Idalia made landfall last year with almost identical ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helen appears greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August.
The destruction extended well beyond Florida.
A mudslide in the Appalachians washed away part of a highway on the North Carolina-Tennessee border.
Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and their occupants had to wait more than four hours before being rescued, said Ryan Cole, deputy director of Buncombe County emergency services. Its 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday.
“We are going to have to deal with this situation for many days and weeks,” Mr Cole said.
Forecasters have warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the last century.