Dozens dead and millions still without power after Helene’s deadly march through the southeastern US

Hurricane Helene caused dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in damage across several U.S. states after making landfall in Florida late Thursday.

Among the at least 44 people who died in the storm were three firefighters, a woman and her one-month-old twins and an 89-year-old woman whose home was hit by a falling tree.

Those killed were in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

All five people who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were ordered to evacuate, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

Some who remained ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising waters, he said, adding that the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas.

He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas.

“After spending the last few hours out there, I would just call it a war zone,” Sheriff Gualtieri said of Helene’s aftermath.

More damage than Idalia and Debby combined, says governor

Helene came ashore late Thursday local time as a category four hurricane near the mouth of the Aucilla River in Florida’s Big Bend region, bringing winds of up to 225 kilometers per hour.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined impact of Hurricane Idalia – which hit just 30 kilometers southeast of Aucilla last year with almost the same ferocity – and Hurricane Debby in August.

Florida’s Big Bend is a part of the state where salt marshes stretch to the horizon and where Florida’s otherwise ubiquitous condominium communities and strip malls are largely absent.

It’s a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her four-year-old Chihuahua mix, Lucy, could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on their housekeeper salary.

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At least until her house was carried away by Helene.

Ms. Hartway strolled down her street near Ezell Beach on Friday afternoon, looking for the spot where the storm might have landed her home.

“It’s gone. I don’t know where it is. I can’t find it,” she said of her house.

Ms. Hartway was born and raised in rural Taylor County. She said there was no place in the world she would rather be, not even after Helene.

But she has watched wealthier residents from other states buy second homes here.

She wonders how many of them will sell out — and what will happen to the locals who have nowhere else to go.

“There are so many people down here that they have nowhere to go now. That was all they had,” she said.

Since August last year, the community has been directly impacted by three hurricanes.

When the water reached knee height in Kera O’Neil’s home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape.

“There’s a moment where you think, ‘If this water rises above the level of the stove, we won’t have much room to breathe,'” she said, recalling how she and her sister waded through chest-deep water one cat waded in a plastic box and another in a cardboard box.

The extent of the damage in Florida only became apparent after daybreak on Friday.

On the Steinhatchee coast, a storm surge – a wall of seawater pushed ashore by the wind – of 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 meters) moved mobile homes, the National Weather Service said on X.

On Treasure Island, a barrier island community in Pinellas County, boats were moored in front yards.

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The city of Tampa published on

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office rescued more than 65 people.

Georgia, Carolinas, Tennessee devastated

The destruction reached far beyond Florida.

Helene moved quickly through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee – uprooting trees, splintering houses, allowing streams and rivers to overflow their banks and straining dams.

A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains has washed out part of a highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line.

Another landslide occurred in homes in North Carolina, and some residents had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, deputy director of Buncombe County Emergency Services.

His emergency call center received more than 3,300 calls within eight hours on Friday.

“This is something we will be dealing with for many days and weeks to come,” Mr Cole said.

Smaller tornadoes also hit some areas – including Nash County, North Carolina, where four people were critically injured.

A North Carolina lake featured in the film Dirty Dancing topped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated.

People were also evacuated from Newport, Tennessee because of fears of a nearby dam.

A record 282.4 millimeters of rain fell in Atlanta in 48 hours, Georgia’s Office of the State Climatologist said on X.

Some parts of the city were so badly flooded that only car roofs were sticking out of the water.

Millions without power while Helene weakens

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Emergency services reported hundreds of calls, but none were more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in eastern Tennessee – where more than 50 hospital patients and staff were removed by helicopter from the roof as water from a flooded river surrounded the building.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency dispatched more than 1,500 workers because of the storm and helped with 400 rescues as of late Friday morning.

Officials urged those trapped to call rescuers and not step into floodwaters, warning that live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris could pose a danger to them.

As Helene weakened into a tropical storm and eventually a post-tropical cyclone, it continued to wreak havoc with heavy rainfall that would lead to “catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash flooding and urban flooding,” according to the National Hurricane Center.

According to the tracker poweroutage.us, more than 4.2 million customers were without power in ten states from Florida to Ohio on Friday evening.

Multiple flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect in parts of southern and central Appalachia, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.

Meteorologists also warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century.

In Georgia, a utility warned of “catastrophic” damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 power lines damaged.

Officials in South Carolina, where more than 40 percent of customers were without power, said crews had to pick their way through the rubble to find what was left in some places.

The storm was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow storms like Helene to thrive, which rapidly intensify in the warmer waters and sometimes transform into powerful hurricanes within hours.

AP/Reuters/AFP