Helene kills over 50 people and leaves millions without power in south-eastern US

Helen, which has now weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, has also caused billions of dollars of destruction across a wide swath of the southeastern U.S. and left more than three million people facing the weekend without any power.

Helene blew ashore in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late on Thursday packing winds of 140 mph and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was essentially cut off because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. There were hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from the roof of a hospital that was surrounded by water from a flooded river.

The cyclone was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. Several flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect in parts of the southern and central Appalachians, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.

Among the at least 44 people killed in the storm were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

In North Carolina, a lake overtopped a dam and surrounding neighbourhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed.

Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people.

Atlanta received a record 28.24 centimetres of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878, Georgia’s Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. Some neighbourhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water.

Moody’s Analytics said it expects 13.5 billion euros to 23.5 billion euros in property damage.

Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours.

Florida's Big Bend is a part of the state where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up so much of the state's coastlines are largely absent.

It’s a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her 4-year-old Chihuahua mix Lucy could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on her salary as a housekeeper.

At least, until her house was carried away by Helene.

Friday afternoon, Hartway wandered around her street near Ezell Beach, searching for where the storm may have deposited her home.

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

Born and raised in rural Taylor County, Hartway said there is nowhere in the world she would rather be, even after Helene. But she’s watched as wealthier residents from out of state have bought up 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’s so many people down here, they don’t have any place to go now. This was all they had,” she said.

The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023.

All five who died in one Florida county were in neighbourhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising water. He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas.

More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who died when trees struck their trucks. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin reported at least one death in his state.

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

“There’s a moment where you are thinking, ‘If this water rises above the level of the stove, we are not going to have not 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 another in a cardboard box.

President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late Friday morning.

Officials urged people who were trapped to call for rescuers and not tread floodwaters, warning they can be dangerous due to live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.

The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 30 kilometres northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August.

The destruction extended far beyond Florida.

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

Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 centre received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours on Friday.

“This is something that we’re going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come,” Cole said.

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