More than 90 people across the Southeast have died, with some communities decimated.
Credit: The New York Times
After making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane and tearing through the Gulf Coast of Florida and parts of Georgia last week, Helene left large parts of North Carolina in a state of paralysis over the weekend, washing out roads, causing landslides and knocking out power and cell service for millions.
Across western North Carolina, towns were destroyed, gas stations were running out of fuel, and residents were in a communications black hole, scrambling for Wi-Fi to try to reach their friends and family. Officials were racing to find victims, rescue people and restore flood-damaged water systems on Sunday. In Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, the sheriff said Sunday morning that there were at least 30 storm-related deaths.
The chaos in the state was part of a path of destruction that Helene carved through the region including Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia. More than 90 people across the Southeast have died, with some communities decimated.
Here’s how Helene has wreaked havoc across the Southeast.
Western North Carolina was facing a historic disaster after the storm.
Helene has brought pounding rains and dangerous landslides to western North Carolina, putting the region in crisis mode. “It’s like a mini-apocalypse,” Gretchen Hogan, a resident of Brevard, North Carolina, said of the situation there.
Across several counties, towns were cut off from the rest of the state. Cellphone service and power were down in many areas, complicating officials’ efforts to reach people calling 911. Debris, downed trees and flooding led to more than 400 road closures, and gas stations were running out of fuel. Officials said to consider all roads in western North Carolina closed, with only emergency rescue vehicles allowed to travel.
These challenges have made rescuing residents and assessing damage a nearly impossible task.
On Sunday, with assistance from search-and-rescue teams from other states and the federal government, the state was airdropping food to cutoff communities and sending workers to restore water systems. In Asheville, officials said restoring the water system there could take weeks.
People in the region were scrambling to find cellular service, congregating in public places like libraries to try to reach their family and friends. Officials in Buncombe County have asked for portable cell towers.
After roaring ashore into Florida, Helene set several records.
Helene barreled into Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday, packing 140-mph winds. Fueled by very warm ocean temperatures, the storm was the strongest ever to strike the Big Bend region, a marshy and sparsely populated area.
Helene, which was the third hurricane to hit the Big Bend in 13 months, broke storm surge records across the Gulf Coast, many of which were last set just more than a year ago, when Hurricane Idalia drenched the same area.
Florida Gov Ron DeSantis spoke about the “complete obliteration of homes” in parts of the state at a news conference Saturday. Cedar Key, a small community on a collection of tiny islands jutting into the Gulf of Mexico, was “completely gone,” said Michael Bobbitt, who lives there. In Keaton Beach, another small shoreline community, the sheriff told a local TV station that 90 per cent of the homes were washed away.
A record-high storm surge inundated the Tampa Bay region, including in areas that had rarely, or never, seen flooding. After facing several hurricanes in recent years, some residents in the region were left wondering whether it’s worth living there.
The storm also razed communities beyond Florida and North Carolina.
Helene overwhelmed towns hundreds of miles away from Florida with pounding rain, muddy water and tornadoes, knocking out power as far north as Cincinnati. Many creeks and rivers breached their banks, and water overtopped some dams.
A dam in eastern Tennessee, the Nolichucky Dam, was also on the verge of failing Saturday, before water started to recede. Elsewhere in the state, helicopters were called in Friday to rescue dozens of people who were surrounded by floodwaters and stranded on a hospital roof.
In Atlanta, even with the storm largely sparing the city, several neighborhoods have endured flooding, and about 100,000 households in the area had their power knocked out Friday. Across Georgia, there were at least 15 storm-related deaths, according to Gov. Brian Kemp.
In a sense of how widespread the damages were, the White House approved emergency requests for federal help from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama before Helene made landfall.
On Saturday, President Joe Biden said he had directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, Deanne Criswell, to travel across the region to assess damage. More than 1,270 rescuers have been deployed, FEMA said.
The death toll is likely to rise, officials say.
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 90 people were confirmed dead across six states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Causes of death included rising floodwaters, falling trees, car crashes and a tornado produced by the storm. Many details on the victims were still unknown.
The highest toll out of one state was 37, in North Carolina, where residents were facing what officials called a historic disaster.
South Carolina saw 25 fatalities, including two volunteer firefighters who were responding to calls and killed after a tree fell on their fire truck, an official said.
And in Florida, DeSantis said that 11 people were confirmed dead — mostly from Pinellas County.