At least 64 people were killed, extensive harm was wreaked across the U.S. Southeast, and power was knocked out to millions of people. Massive rains from Hurricane Helene left thousands trapped, without shelter, and waiting for rescue as cleanup efforts began.
Many of Steinhatchee, Florida’s friends and neighbors were unable to get home insurance, so Janalea England converted her commercial fish market into a storm donation site. “I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” she said. Steinhatchee is a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend.
Late Thursday, Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).
The storm swiftly made its way across Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp expressed his dismay at what he described as the “looks like a bomb went off” after seeing destroyed homes and highways covered in debris from above. As Helene weakened, she unleashed deluges of rain on Tennessee and the Carolinas, flooding rivers and forcing dams to overflow.
The closing of Interstate 40 and other routes in western North Carolina was caused by landslides and water, effectively cutting off the region. Because the Buccaneers’ journey to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours due to all the closures, the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel could not get underway until much later.
Out of hundreds of water rescues, Friday’s helicopter extraction of scores of patients and personnel from a hospital rooftop in rural Unicoi County, East Tennessee, was the most dramatic. Part of Asheville was submerged in water in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and rescue operations persisted into the following day.
The county sheriff, Quentin Miller, used the phrase “caught us off guard” to describe how surprised everyone was.
Neighbors in the Biltmore Village neighborhood have been visiting each other’s homes to offer assistance and check on damage, and Asheville resident Mario Moraga described it as “heartbreaking” to watch.
“My phone won’t work in this area. As far as he could tell, there was no power.
Although fatalities have occurred in the county, Van Taylor Jones, director of emergency services, stated that he was not yet prepared to provide details, in part due to the fact that efforts to reach relatives were impeded by downed cell towers. In a last-ditch effort to get assistance, relatives took to Facebook.
On Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center predicted that the storm, which has since transitioned to a post-tropical cyclone status, would pass over the Tennessee Valley.
North Carolina had its worst floods in a hundred years as a result. Over two feet (0.6 meters) of rain fell on one town, Spruce Pine, between Tuesday and Saturday.
Additionally, the city of Atlanta had its most two-day rainfall since records began in 1878, with 11.12 inches (28.24 cm) falling over the course of 48 hours.
On Saturday, Joe Biden, the president, stated that the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene is “overwhelming” and promised to dispatch aid. Along with that, he gave his approval for North Carolina to be declared a disaster, which means that people in the state can now access federal funds.
Hurricane Hugo, which made landfall just north of Charleston in 1989, killed 35 people, making Helene the deadliest tropical cyclone for South Carolina with at least 25 casualties. North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Georgia have also recorded fatalities.
According to Moody’s Analytics, the estimated property loss ranges from $15 billion to $26 billion. Helene caused between $95 billion and $110 billion in damage and economic loss in the United States, according to AccuWeather’s early estimate.
Lakes overtopped dams, prompting evacuations that started before the storm even hit. One such dam in North Carolina created the lake seen in the film “Dirty Dancing.” Some residents’ homes were rescued from the water by means of helicopters.
According to Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, nine of the eleven confirmed fatalities in Florida occurred in residences within a Gulf Coast mandatory evacuation zone in Pinellas County.
The hurricane made landfall in Taylor County, however none of the victims were from that county. Near the mouth of the Aucilla River, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of last year’s nearly identically devastating Hurricane Idalia, it came ashore.
The Big Bend region of Florida, where Taylor County is located, was spared direct hurricane impact for several years. Following Idalia and two more storms in the span of a little over a year, the region is starting to seem like a tornado highway.
John Berg, 76, of the little fishing village and weekend retreat Steinhatchee, spoke on how the tragedies are making people realize how serious things are now.
Storms like this have become more common as a result of climate change, which has heated the oceans to the point where they can strengthen into cyclones in a few short hours.
The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and Helene was the sixth named storm to make landfall. Ocean temperatures have reached record highs, leading the NOAA to forecast an above-average season this year.
