Aftermath of Hurricane Helene: Dozens dead and millions without power

PERRY, Fla. (AP) — Massive rainfall from heavy Hurricane Helene People remained stranded, unhoused and awaiting rescue on Saturday as cleanup efforts began after a storm that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction across the southeastern United States and left millions without power.

“I've never seen so many homeless people as I do right now,” said Janalea England of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town on the state's rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn't get insurance for their houses.

Helene blown ashore in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).

From there it moved quickly through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it “looked like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then flooded the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that pushed streams and rivers over their banks and strained dams.

Western North Carolina was isolated due to landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. All of these closures delayed the start of East Tennessee State University's football game against The Citadel, as the Buccaneers' drive to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours.

There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where Dozens of patients and employees were rescued by helicopter from the roof of a hospital on Friday. And rescue operations continued into the next day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.

“To say this surprised us would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.

Asheville resident Mario Moraga said it was “heartbreaking” to see the damage in the Biltmore Village neighborhood and neighbors went door to door checking on each other's conditions and offering support.

“There is no cell phone reception here. There is no electricity,” he said.

While there have been deaths in the county, emergency services director Van Taylor Jones said he was unwilling to report details, in part because destroyed cell towers hampered efforts to contact next of kin.

Relatives desperately called for help on Facebook. Among those waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, whose sister told her she was going to check on guests at a vacation cabin as the storm hit Asheville. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, has not been able to reach her since.

“I think people are just completely stuck,” she said.

The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.

“Catastrophic” flooding

It triggered the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina, where Gov. Roy Cooper called it “catastrophic” as search and rescue teams from 19 states and the federal government came to help. One community, Spruce Pine, was flooded with more than 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain Tuesday through Saturday.

And Atlanta received 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in two days since records began in 1878.

President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene's devastation was “overwhelming” and vowed to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina and made federal funding available for affected individuals.

With at least 25 deaths in South Carolina, Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths were also reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

Moody's Analytics expects property damage to range from $15 billion to $26 billion. AccuWeather's preliminary estimate of Helene's total damage and economic loss in the U.S. is between $95 billion and $110 billion.

Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow such storms to thrive. They intensify quickly in the warmer waters, sometimes turning into strong cyclones within a few hours.

Evacuations and overflowing dams

The evacuations began before the storm and continued as the sea swelled overfilled damsincluding one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the film “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded houses.

And in Newport, Tennessee, Jonah Wark waited so long to evacuate that a boat had to come to help. “Definitely a scary moment,” Wark said.

After surveying the damage by helicopter, a stunned U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger said, “Who knew a hurricane would cause so much damage in East Tennessee?”

The 11 confirmed deaths in Florida included nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation zone on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, 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 Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of there Hurricane Idalia hit last year with almost the same intensity.

“If you had told me that even with the best efforts there would be a storm surge of 15 to 18 feet, I would have assumed there would have been multiple fatalities,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday.

Taylor County is located in Florida's Big Bend and has not been directly hit by a hurricane in years. But after Idalia and two other storms in just over a year, the area is starting to feel like a hurricane highway.

“It brings home to everyone the reality of what the disasters are like now,” said John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing village and weekend getaway spot.

Timmy Futch of Horseshoe Beach stood for the hurricane before driving to higher ground as the water reached his home. Many houses in the town that his grandfather helped found were reduced to rubble.

“We watched our city being torn apart,” Futch said.

The aftermath

About 60 miles (100 kilometers) north, cars lined up at a free food distribution site in Perry, Florida, amid widespread power outages before dawn on Saturday.

“We're taking it one day at a time,” said Sierra Land, who lost everything in her refrigerator when she arrived on site with her 5- and 10-year-old sons and grandmother.

Thousands of utility workers landed in Florida in advance of the hurricane, and power had been restored to more than 1.9 million homes and businesses by Saturday. But hundreds of thousands remain without electricity there and in Georgia.

Chris Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, said crews were focused on clearing routes to hospitals and ensuring supplies could be delivered to damaged communities.

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

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Payne reported from Perry and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed.