Hurricane Helen left a massive trail of devastation across Florida and the entire Southeastern United States on Friday, killing at least 40 people in four states, snapping towering oak trees like limbs, destroying homes and sending rescue teams on desperate missions to rescue people from the waters. Floods.
The Category 4 hurricane knocked out power to some hospitals in south Georgia, and Gov. Brian Kemp said authorities had to use chainsaws to remove debris and clear roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometers per hour when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated area of Florida’s rural Big Bend, home to fishing villages and vacation retreats where the Florida Panhandle and the Peninsula meet.
Moody’s Analytics said on Friday it expects property losses of between $15 billion and $26 billion.
The damage extended hundreds of miles north into northeastern Tennessee, where a “serious helicopter rescue” unfolded after 54 people were flown to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital as water quickly submerged the facility. Ballad Health said all staff and patients were rescued and no one remained hospitalized as of late Friday afternoon.
In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing” has overwhelmed a dam. Residents were evacuated from surrounding neighborhoods, although there were no immediate fears that the operation would fail. People were also evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a nearby dam there, although officials later said the structure had not collapsed.
Tornadoes touched down in some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, seriously injuring four people.
The Georgia state climatology office said on the social media platform (24.36 cm) in 1886. Some neighborhoods were flooded so badly that only the roofs of cars could be seen floating on top of the water.
A GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:46 PM EDT and provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Helen in the Gulf of Mexico moving toward Florida, Thursday, September 26, 2024.
NOAA via AP
Climate change has worsened the conditions that allow such storms to flourish, intensify quickly in warm waters, and transform into powerful hurricanes and hurricanes, sometimes within hours.
When Lori Lilliot stopped on her street in Dickel Beach, Florida, after Helen made her way, she couldn’t see the roofline of her house beyond the palm trees. It had collapsed, torn apart by Helen’s violent gusts, one corner of which was still precariously supported by the buttresses.
“It took a long time for me to breathe,” Lilliot said.
As she surveyed the damage, her name and phone number were still inked on her arm in permanent marker, a warning from Taylor County officials to help identify bodies recovered in the storm’s aftermath. The community has suffered direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023.
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Bob Gualtieri, the mayor of Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area, said that all five people who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods that residents had been asked to evacuate. He said some of those who stayed because they did not believe the warnings had to hide in their attics to escape the rising waters.
“We tried launching boats, we tried using high-water vehicles and we ran into a lot of obstacles,” Gualtieri said, warning that the death toll could rise as emergency crews went house to house in flooded areas.
More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two firefighters in South Carolina who were killed when a tree collided with their fire truck.
Videos posted on social media showed sheets of rain and siding falling from buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm arrived. One news station showed an upside-down house, and many communities imposed curfews.
“It’s really heartbreaking,” said Stephen Tucker, after the tornado destroyed the new roof of a church in Perry, which was replaced after Hurricane Idalia last year.
When the water rose to Keira O’Neill’s knees inside her 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. With one cat in a plastic carrier and the other in a cardboard box.
In Cedar Key, Florida, Keegan Ward described the horror of falling tree branches as the storm struck. “I didn’t know what I was going to wake up to,” Ward said.
President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped rescue 400 people by late morning. In Tampa, some areas are only accessible by boat.
Officials warned that floodwaters could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.
The Sheriff’s Office in Citrus County, Florida, warned in a Facebook post, “If you are trapped and need assistance, please call rescuers – do not attempt to negotiate floodwaters yourself.”
Nearly 4 million homes and businesses were without power Friday afternoon in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
In Georgia, the Electric Utility Group warned of “catastrophic” damage to the state’s public utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines damaged. Officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of homes and businesses were without power, said crews needed to pick their way through the debris just to determine what was still standing in some places.
The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Ocilla River on Florida’s Gulf Coast, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where Idalia hit last year with almost the same ferocity. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helen appears to be greater than the combined damage caused by Idalia and Hurricane Debbie in August.
“It’s difficult and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state,” DeSantis said at a news conference in storm-ravaged St. Pete Beach, Florida.
As the hurricane’s center passed near Valdosta, Georgia, a city of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people gathered early Friday in the darkened hotel lobby. Helen is the third storm to hit the city in just over a year.
“I feel like a lot of us know what to do now,” said Fermin Herrera, 20, cradling his sleeping 2-month-old daughter in the hotel’s downstairs hallway. “We’ve seen some storms and grown some thick hides.”
The St. Pete Pier is photographed amid winds and heavy waves as Hurricane Helen makes its way toward Florida, passing west of Tampa Bay, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Martha Asencio Ryan/Tampa Bay Times via AP
Shortly after crossing land, Hurricane Helen weakened and strengthened into a tropical storm and then into a post-tropical cyclone. Meteorologists said the floods continued to cause catastrophic flooding, and some areas saw more than a foot of rain.
A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed away part of the highway on the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Meanwhile, residents of homes hit by another mudslide in North Carolina had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, assistant director of Buncombe County Emergency Services. Its 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours on Friday.
“This is something we will be dealing with for many days and weeks to come,” Cole said.
In North Carolina, meteorologists warned of floods that could be worse than anything seen in the last century. Evacuations are still underway and about 300 roads have been closed statewide. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to assist.
Charles Starling, a lineman with Fishel’s team, gets drenched in rain as he walks past a line of electric line trucks in a field in The Villages, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in preparation for damage from Hurricane Helen.
Stephen M. Doyle/Orlando Sentinel via AP
Multiple school districts and universities have canceled classes. Florida airports that were closed due to the storm reopened on Friday. Inspectors are checking bridges and roads along the Gulf Coast to quickly reopen them to traffic, the state’s transportation secretary said.
The hurricane also inundated parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, submerging streets and downing trees as it passed the resort of Cancun and passed offshore this week. In western Cuba, Helen cut off power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it passed through the island.
Helen was the eighth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean this year due to record warm ocean temperatures.
Streets flooded after Hurricane Helen are seen in Madeira Beach, Florida, Thursday, September 26, 2024.
Max Chesnes/Tampa Bay Times via AP
Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Bornstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta. Ross Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Cotto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and Maria Verza in Mexico City; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.
