Hurricane Helene triggers ‘catastrophic’ US floods, 17 dead

A house destroyed by Hurricane Helene after making landfall is seen in Cedar Key, Florida, on September 27, 2024. Hurricane Helene weakened on September 27 hours after it made landfall in the US state of Florida, with officials warning the storm remained “extremely dangerous” as it surged inland, leaving flooded roads and homes in its wake. (Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP)

STEINHATCHEE, United States — Hurricane Helene killed at least 17 people and caused massive flooding across the southeast United States on Friday, knocking out power for millions of customers.

Roads, homes and businesses were inundated after Helene made landfall near the Florida state capital Tallahassee overnight and surged north, though it weakened to a tropical storm.

The National Hurricane Center reported “historic and catastrophic flooding” and warned of flash floods in Georgia’s largest city Atlanta, as well as in South Carolina and North Carolina.

Up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain was forecast in the Appalachian mountains, with isolated spots even receiving 20 inches.

In Perry, near where Helene slammed into the coast as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, houses lost power and the gas station was flattened.

“Once the eye (of the storm) got to us, that’s when everything started to intensify,” Larry Bailey, 32, who sheltered in his small wooden home all night with his two nephews and sister, told AFP.

“I am Floridian, so I’m kind of used to it, but it was real scary at one point. It’s like, was my house gonna get blown away or not?”

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp reported 11 fatalities in his state, including an emergency responder, and he warned that the city of Valdosta had identified 115 heavily damaged structures with multiple people trapped inside.

Authorities in Pinellas County in Florida confirmed five storm-related deaths, and one person also died in Charlotte, North Carolina when a tree fell on a home, the fire department said.

Extreme weather 

With typhoon Yagi battering Asia, storm Boris drenching Europe, extreme flooding in the Sahel, September so far has been an unusually wet month around the world.

Scientists link some extreme weather events to human-caused global warming.

“Helene traveled over exceptionally warm ocean waters in the Gulf of Mexico,” Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University in New Jersey, told AFP.

“It’s likely that those extra-warm ocean waters played a role in Helene’s rapid intensification.

“We also know that storm surges from hurricanes are getting worse because our sea levels are rising as we warm the planet.”

Curtis Drafton, a search and rescue volunteer, 48, in Steinhatchee, Florida raised similar concerns on the ground as he tackled the storm’s aftermath.

“We have got to start wondering: is this the new normal? Is it going to happen every year?” he told AFP.

“We have a lot of talk about once-in-a-lifetime storm, but we had one similar last year.

“We had a 9-foot storm surge, two feet over my head plus a little bit more. This dock here got shredded.”

Some residents in Atlanta used buckets to empty water out of their ground-floor windows, while near Tampa in Florida, boats were left stranded in gardens.

More than 4.3 million homes and businesses were without power across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us.

In the impact zone, residents had been warned of “unsurvivable” storm surge.

President Joe Biden and state authorities had urged people to heed official evacuation warnings before Helene hit, though some chose to stay in their homes to wait out the storm.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Friday that work was underway to restore power and clear roads.

“In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, hundreds of search and rescue missions were conducted by state personnel,” he told reporters.

“There are over 1,000,000 accounts without power in the state, but over a million have already been restored. Over 2,000 miles of roadway have been cleared, and these operations continue.”