At Least 89 Dead (and climbing) After Hurricane Helene Hammers Southeast

Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene has left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 89 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast, and knocked out power to millions of people.

This from newsmax.com.

Hurricane Helene’s storm surge may set records along Florida’s Big Bend.

 Janalea England of Steinhatchee, Florida, said:

I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now.

The devastation of Helene in Steinhatchee FL.

A small river town along 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 could not get insurance on their homes.

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph.

From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday:

[It] looks like a bomb went off.

Kemp viewed splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air.

Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads.

Keep in mind, the southeast is high school and college football country. And even the destruction of Hurricane Helene could not stop that.

All those closures delayed the start of the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel because 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 staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday. And the rescues continued into the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.

Quentin Miller, the county sheriff, said:

To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement.

Asheville resident Mario Moraga said it was “heartbreaking” to see the damage in the Biltmore Village neighborhood and neighbors have been going house to house to check on each other and offer support.

He said:

There’s no cell service here. There’s no electricity.

There have been deaths in the county, but Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said he was not ready to report specifics, partially because downed cell towers hindered efforts to contact next of kin. Relatives put out desperate pleas for help on Facebook.

The National Hurricane Center said:

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

It unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.

And in Atlanta, 11.12 inches of rain fell over 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878.

Dementia Joe said Saturday that Helene’s devastation has been “overwhelming” and pledged to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.

With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore just north of Charleston in 1989.

Deaths also have been reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

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

Evacuations began before the storm hit and continued as lakes overtopped dams, including one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said:

Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County.

None of the victims were from Taylor County, which is where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity.

Taylor County in Florida’s Big Bend, went years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Idalia and two other storms in a little over a year, the area is beginning to feel like a hurricane superhighway.

John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing town and weekend getaway, said:

It’s bringing everybody to reality about what this is now with disasters.

President Trump and Republican allies were knocking Dementia Joe and Comrade Kamala for an obvious lack of attention to the natural disasters destroying significant parts of Appalachian North Carolina.

Rescue crew on the edge of the River District of Asheville NC.

Following days of horrific videos of flooding, rain, and mudslides devastating western North Carolina, Trump was in Pennsylvania when he posted his criticism on Truth Social on Sunday:

Why is Lyin’ Kamala Harris in San Francisco, a City that she has totally destroyed, at fundraising events, when big parts of our Country are devastated and under water—with many people dead?

Team Trump wrote:

Tomorrow [Monday, September 30, 2024, at 2pm EDT], President Donald J. Trump will visit Valdosta, Georgia, to receive a briefing on the devastation of Hurricane Helene, facilitate the distribution of relief supplies, and deliver remarks to the press.

11Alive noted:

Valdosta is among one of Georgia’s hardest hit areas as hurricane-force winds barreled through South Georgia.

WSB-TV reported:

While in Valdosta, the former president will help distribute relief supplies.

Ahead of the storm’s arrival, Gov. Brian Kemp issued a disaster declaration for parts of Georgia that were expected to be impacted by Helene. Joe Biden upgraded a federal major disaster declaration to a full emergency declaration as the storm bore down on the state after making landfall in Florida.

In the days following Helene’s path through the southeast United States, the toll of lives lost and damage dealt has grown, with 64 now confirmed dead across several states and damages measured as much as $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage according to Moody’s Analytics.

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 record-warm ocean temperatures.

Final thoughts: Many Def-Con News readers have been affected by this deadly storm. May God grant you the strength to endure. And best wishes, thoughts, and prayers to all.