ATLANTA: Tropical Storm Helene brought life-threatening flooding to the Carolinas on Friday after leaving widespread devastation as the major hurricane in Florida and Georgia killed at least 33 people, swamped neighborhoods and left more than 4 million homes and businesses without power.
Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend area as a powerful Category 4 hurricane Thursday at 11:10 p.m. ET (0310 GMT Friday) and left a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbors, downed trees, submerged cars and flooded roads.
Police and firefighters made thousands of water rescues across the affected states, including Atlanta, where an apartment complex had to be evacuated due to flooding.
Helene made landfall in Florida with sustained winds of 140 mph (225 km/h), weakening to a tropical storm as it moved toward Georgia early Friday. By early afternoon, the storm had downgraded to a tropical depression and was packing maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 km/h) as it slowed over Tennessee and Kentucky, the National Hurricane Center said.
Helene’s heavy rainfall continued to cause devastating flooding in southern Appalachia, the NHC said.
More than 50 people were trapped on the roof of a hospital midday Friday in Unicoi County, Tennessee, about 120 miles northeast of Knoxville, local media reported, as flooding engulfed the rural community.
Rising waters from the Nolichucky River were preventing ambulances and emergency vehicles from evacuating patients and others there, Unicoi County Emergency Management said on social media, but emergency crews in boats were conducting rescues.
In western North Carolina, emergency officials in Rutherford County warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam shortly before noon to evacuate immediately to higher ground, saying “Dam failure is imminent.”
In nearby Buncombe County, mudslides forced Interstates 40 and 26 to close, the county told X.
The extent of the damage in Florida began to appear after dawn.
On the Steinhatchee coast, a storm surge — the wall of seawater pushed ashore by winds — of 8 to 10 feet (2.4-3 meters) moved mobile homes, the NWS reported on X. On Treasure Island, a barrier island community in Pinellas County, boats were grounded in front yards.
The city of Tampa posted on X that emergency personnel had completed 78 water rescues of residents and that many roads were impassable due to flooding. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office rescued more than 65 people overnight.
The US Coast Guard said it rescued nine people from the storm’s waters. Video posted online shows a Coast Guard crew pulling a man and his dog wearing life jackets from the ocean Thursday after his sailboat became disabled off Sanibel Island.
Kevin Guthrie, Florida’s emergency management director, urged residents in the affected areas to stay off the roads.
“I’m begging you, don’t come out,” Guthrie said at a morning press conference. “We have 1,500 search and rescue personnel in the affected areas. Please stand aside so we can do our job.”
Officials had urged residents along Helene Road to heed evacuation orders, describing the storm surge as “unsurvivable,” NHC director Michael Brennan warned.
In Taylor County, the Sheriff’s Department wrote on social media that residents who chose not to evacuate should write their names and dates of birth on their arms in permanent ink “so you can be identified and notify family your”.
Some residents had stubbornly stayed put.
Ken Wood, 58, a ferry operator in Pinellas County, said he should have heeded evacuation orders instead of escaping the storm at home with his 16-year-old cat, Andy.
“I’ll never do it again, I swear,” Wood said. “It was a painful experience. It roared all night like a train. It was unnerving. The house shook.”
Down the hill from his home, the storm flooded some homes with seawater. One house caught fire and burned, shooting flames 30 feet into the stormy sky, he said.
“Old Andy didn’t seem to care,” Wood said. “It went well. But next time we go.”
Some of Wood’s neighbors weren’t so lucky. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said first responders were unable to respond to many emergency calls from residents overnight because of the conditions. On Friday, county authorities found at least five dead.
Two more people in Florida have died, Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has reported 11 storm-related deaths in his state so far, while North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said there have been two deaths in his state.
At least 13 people died during the storm in South Carolina, the Charleston-based Post and Courier newspaper reported, citing local officials.
Helene was unusually large for a Gulf hurricane, forecasters said, although the size of a storm is not the same as its strength, which is based on maximum wind speed.
Hours before landfall, Helene’s tropical-storm-force winds extended outward 310 miles (500 km), according to the National Hurricane Center. By comparison, Idalia, another major hurricane that hit Florida’s Big Bend region last year, had tropical storm-force winds reaching 160 miles (260 km) about eight hours before making landfall.
Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and St. Petersburg suspended operations Thursday but reopened Friday, although extensive delays were expected.
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