Helene brings flooding and strong winds to Southeast – NBC 6 South Florida

Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction in Florida and across the southeastern US on Friday, killing at least 40 people in four states, snapping towering oak trees like twigs, tearing down homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from 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 clear debris and open roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 km/h) as it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region of Florida’s rural Big Bend, home to fishing villages and vacation retreats where the Panhandle and peninsula meet Florida.

The storm is blamed for at least 15 deaths in Georgia, including one first responder, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said at a news conference. “One of our best lost his life trying to save others,” he said. There were at least seven deaths in Florida, including five reported overnight in Pinellas County, Florida, officials said. The sheriff’s office said two of those deaths appear to have been due to drowning, NBC News reported.

In South Carolina, 17 people were killed by NBC News, along with seven in Florida, two in North Carolina and one in Virginia.

Moody’s Analytics said on Friday that it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.

That damage extended hundreds of miles north into northeast Tennessee, where a “dangerous helicopter rescue” was launched after 54 people were moved to the roof of Unicoi County Hospital as water quickly flooded the facility. All staff and patients were rescued and no one was hospitalized as of late Friday afternoon, Ballad Health said.

In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing” has breached a dam. People in surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, though there were no immediate concerns that it would fail. People were also evacuated from Newport, Tenn., a town of about 7,000, amid concerns about a nearby dam, though officials later said the structure had not failed.

Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, seriously injuring four people.

Atlanta received a record 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since records began in 1878, the National Weather Service Bureau said State of Georgia on social platform X. The 9.59-inch (24.36 cm) mark was set in 1886. Some neighborhoods were so heavily flooded that only the roofs of cars could be seen sticking out of the water.

Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and becoming powerful hurricanes and typhoons, sometimes within hours.

When Laurie Lilliott pulled up her street in Dekle Beach, Florida, after Helene broke in, she couldn’t see the roofline of her house beyond the palm trees. It had collapsed, torn apart by Helene’s powerful storm surge, one corner still supported precariously by a pile.

“It took me a long time to catch my breath,” Lilliott said.

As she surveyed the damage, her name and phone number were still written on her arm in permanent marker, a warning from Taylor County officials to help identify bodies recovered from the storm. The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023.

Videos on social media showed sheets of rain and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm made landfall. A news station showed a house that was overturned, and many communities imposed curfews.

“It’s really heartbreaking,” said Stephen Tucker, after the hurricane peeled off the brand new roof on a church in Perry that was replaced after Hurricane Idalia last year.

Helene, a powerful Category 4 hurricane, made landfall in Florida late Thursday

When the water rose to Kera O’Neil’s knees in her home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape.

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

In Cedar Key, Florida, Kegan Ward described the terror of falling tree limbs as the storm hit. “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 assisted in 400 rescues by late morning. In Tampa, some areas could only be reached by boat.

Officials warned that floodwaters may contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.

“If you are trapped and need help, please call for rescue – DO NOT TRY TO TREAD FLOOD WATERS,” the Citrus County, Florida, sheriff’s office warned in a Facebook post.

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, an electric utility group warned of “catastrophic” damage to the state’s utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40 percent of homes and businesses are without power, said crews had to pick their way through the rubble just to determine what was left standing in some places.

The hurricane made landfall near the mouth of the Aucilla River on Florida’s Gulf Coast, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where Idalia struck last year with nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appeared to be greater than the combined damage from Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August.

Residents of Florida and Georgia are waking up to the devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene.

“It’s hard and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state,” DeSantis said at a news conference in St. Pete Beach, Florida, damaged by the storm.

Atlanta was drenched, leaving some neighborhoods so flooded that only the roofs of cars could be seen sticking out of the water.

As the eye of the hurricane passed near Valdosta, Georgia, a town of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people huddled in a darkened hotel lobby Friday morning. Helene 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 a downstairs hotel hallway. “I’ve seen some storms and grown some thicker skins.”

Shortly after crossing land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm and later to a post-tropical cyclone. Forecasters said catastrophic flooding continued and some areas received more than a foot of rain.

A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out a section of an interstate at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Meanwhile, occupants of homes hit by another mudslide in North Carolina had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, Buncombe County’s assistant director of emergency services. Its 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday.

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

Florida is experiencing extremely dangerous weather as Hurricane Helene approaches the coast.

In North Carolina, forecasters warned of flooding that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Evacuations were underway and about 300 roads were closed statewide. The Connecticut Army National Guard dispatched a helicopter to assist.

School districts and several universities have canceled classes. Airports in Florida that were closed due to the storm were reopened on Friday. Inspectors were examining bridges and roads along the Gulf Coast to quickly reopen them to traffic, the state’s transportation secretary said.

Helene also inundated parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and uprooting trees as it brushed the resort town of Cancun and moved offshore this week. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it passed the island.

Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year due to record ocean temperatures.

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Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press reporters Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto of San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon contributed to this report.