Authors: Rich McKay, Joseph Ax and Andrew Hay
ATLANTA (Reuters): Authorities in the southeastern United States faced the complex task on Saturday of cleaning up the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, one of the most powerful and perhaps costliest to hit the country, as the death toll continues to rise.
At least 47 deaths had been reported by early Saturday, and officials feared even more bodies had been discovered in several states.
Damage estimates for the storm range from $95 billion to $110 billion, potentially making it one of the most steep in newfangled U.S. history, said chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter of commercial forecasting firm AccuWeather.
The remnants of Helene, downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone behind schedule Friday evening, continued to dump ponderous rains in several states, triggering massive flooding that threatened to fail dams that could inundate entire cities.
“The devastation we are witnessing in the wake of Hurricane Helene is overwhelming,” President Joe Biden said Saturday. “Jill and I continue to pray for all those who have lost loved ones and for all those affected by this storm.”
At least 3 million customers remained without power in five states on Saturday afternoon, and authorities warned it could take days to fully restore service. The worst outages occurred in South Carolina, where more than 1 million homes and businesses were without power, and in Georgia, where 750,000 residents were without power.
The NWS Weather Prediction Center reported some of the worst rainfall hit western North Carolina, with almost 76 centimeters of rain falling on Mount Mitchell in Yancey County.
Atlanta received 13 inches of rain, and in South Georgia, farmers assessed damage to the state’s $1 billion cotton crop and $400 million pecan crop now in harvest season.
Before moving north through Georgia into Tennessee and the Carolinas, Helene hit the Big Bend region of Florida on Thursday evening as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, packing winds of 140 mph. It left behind a messy landscape of overturned boats in ports, fallen trees, submerged cars and flooded streets.
On Friday, police and firefighters carried out thousands of water rescues in affected states.
More than 50 people were rescued from the roof of a hospital in Unicoi County, Tennessee, about 120 miles (193 km) northeast of Knoxville, state officials said, after floodwaters inundated the rural community.
The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings overnight for an area of East Tennessee covering 100,000 people, warning them to seek higher ground. The Nolichucky Dam in Greene County, Tennessee, was on the verge of failure on Saturday, officials said, adding that a breach could occur at any time.
In western North Carolina, Rutherford County emergency officials warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam that it might fail, although they said behind schedule Friday that it did not appear imminent.
Many people in and around Chimney Rock, North Carolina, described the downtown area as washed out, and photos online showed inches of mud and sediment, uprooted trees and broken telephone poles, and buildings reduced to rubble.
“Okay guys, listen up, Chimney Rock is gone, Flowering Bridge is gone,” a Touristpov poster on TikTok announced, showing videos of the destruction. “I don’t know what they’ll do to get us out of here.”
In nearby Buncombe County, landslides closed Interstates 40 and 26, washing out parts of them, the county said.
Mountain communities such as Boone and Burnsville, North Carolina, were cut off as highways clogged with debris or washed away, said Rebecca Newton, who was trying to find someone in the area with cell service who could check on her family home near Mount Mitchell.
“The cities are completely cut off,” she said after the morning, making dozens of calls to friends in the area. “They’re using helicopters to get people out of Boone and Asheville.”
“Spruce Pine is gone, just the roofs sticking out of the water,” she said of the mountain community about 50 miles northeast of Asheville.
Newton said a friend told her she saw houses in her neighborhood slide one by one into the river near Boone.
“It’s unreal,” she said.
The Burnsville Hub (NASDAQ:) Facebook page is full of people desperate for someone to check on relatives and friends who have been cut off from phone service.
One poster, Rachel Richmond, wrote: “I need any route that gets me as close as possible. I’ll walk the rest of the way. I have to reach my parents.”
WAKE UP TO DISASTER
The extent of the damage in Florida began to become apparent after dawn Friday.
In coastal Steinhatchee, the NWS says a storm surge – a wall of sea water pushed ashore by winds – of 8 to 10 feet high moved trailers. On Treasure Island, a barrier island community in Pinellas County, boats became stranded in front of a house.
The city of Tampa posted on X that emergency personnel conducted 78 water rescues for residents and that many roads were impassable due to flooding. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office rescued more than 65 people.
A total of 11 people died in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday during a speech in Perry, Florida, where in recent years storm surges have reached 5 feet, higher than hurricanes.
“If you look around, you’ll see some of the houses are just rubble,” he said. “These things come in, they’re fierce and they’re just unstoppable.”
Deanne Criswell, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, joined DeSantis on a tour of areas of the state devastated by the storm.
“I just want to say on behalf of the president that we offer our deepest sympathies to the families who have lost loved ones,” Criswell said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s office said 15 people died in the state due to the storms, while North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said two people died there.
At least 19 people died during the storm that swept through South Carolina, the Post and Courier newspaper from Charleston reported, citing local authorities.
(Reporting and writing by Rich McKay; additional reporting by Joseph Axe, Andrew Hay, Brad Brooks and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Daniel Wallis)
