Authorities scrambled to airlift supplies and restore communications and roads in flooded Asheville, North Carolina, on Sunday, as residents gathered along Florida’s storm-battered coast to attend church services amid the debris of Hurricane Helen.
Heavy rains from powerful Hurricane Helen have left people stranded, without shelter and waiting for rescue across the southeastern United States. Cleanup operations continued Sunday from a storm that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread devastation across Southeastern states and knocked out power to several million people.
As the sun rose over Florida’s Big Bend on Sunday after Hurricane Helen struck the area, many houses of worship were still dealing with power outages, damaged roofs and hurricane debris — and the knowledge that many worshipers were enduring another blow from a devastating hurricane. storm.
More than 1,610 kilometers away in Texas, Jessica Dry-Turner begged for someone to rescue her family members who were stranded on the roof of their home in Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by rising floodwaters. “They are seeing 18 vans and cars floating by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post on Friday.
But in a follow-up message, widely shared on social media on Saturday, Turner said help did not arrive in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her six-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and the three drowned.
“I cannot convey in words the sadness, heartbreak, and devastation that my sisters and I are experiencing, nor can I imagine the pain before us,” she wrote.
Horseshoe Beach maintenance manager Chris Jordan tries to find a valve to shut off the water amid the ruins of destroyed City Hall in the wake of Hurricane Helen, in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024.
AFP Photos/Gerald Herbert
Helen came ashore in Florida’s Big Bend area as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 225 kilometers per hour.
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From there, it moved quickly across Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that “it looks like a bomb went off” after watching split homes and debris-covered highways from the air. After Helen weakened, the Carolinas and Tennessee were inundated with torrential rains, causing streams and rivers to overflow their banks and strain levees.
Western North Carolina It was isolated by landslides and flooding that closed Interstate 40 and other roads. There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than what happened in rural Unicoi County in eastern Tennessee. Dozens of patients and staff They were recovered by a helicopter from the roof of a hospital on Friday. Rescue operations continued the next day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was underwater.
The National Hurricane Center said the storm is expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday.
It unleashed the worst floods in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, received more than 60 centimeters of heavy rain from Tuesday to Saturday.
In the Big Bend area of Florida, some lost almost everything they owned and emerged from the storm without even a pair of shoes. As sanctuaries remained dark in a county where 97 percent of customers were without power as of Sunday morning, some churches canceled regular services while others like Faith Baptist Church in Perry chose to worship outside.
Standing water and tree debris still cover the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. The church invited parishioners to come “to pray for our community” in a message posted on the church’s Facebook page.
“There is still no electricity or water, so bathrooms will not be available. We have chairs, or you can bring your own!” the post reads.
In Atlanta, 28.24 centimeters of rain fell over 48 hours, the highest the city has seen over two days since records began in 1878.
President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helen’s devastation was “overwhelming” and pledged to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available to affected individuals.
Floodwaters surround a home in the wake of Hurricane Helen, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Florida.
AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack
With at least 25 people killed in South Carolina, Helen is the state’s deadliest tropical cyclone since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths have also been reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
Moody’s Analytics said it expects property losses ranging from $15 billion to $26 billion. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimates of total damage and economic losses from Hurricane Helen in the United States range between US$95 billion and US$110 billion.
Evacuations began before the storm hit and continued at the lakes Overtopping damsincluding one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the film Dirty dancing. Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.
Of the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida, nine people drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation zone on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
None of the victims were from Taylor County, where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Ocilla River, about 30 kilometers northwest of the place Hurricane Idalia hit Last year with almost the same ferocity.
Taylor County is located in the Big Bend region of Florida, and has gone years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Hurricane Idalia and two other storms in just over a year, the area is starting to feel like a hurricane highway.
“It makes everyone realize what it’s like now with disasters,” said John Burge, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing town and weekend getaway.
Climate change has worsened the conditions that allow such storms to flourish, intensifying quickly in warm waters, and turning into powerful hurricanes sometimes within hours.
Helen was the eighth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an above-average season this year. Due to record warm ocean temperatures.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
