More than 60 dead from Helene in Southeast, millions still without power

Hurricane Helene killed at least 63 people across multiple states and left more than 2.5 million customers without power from Florida to Ohio as it continued to wreak havoc across the Southeast Saturday. 

The storm crashed ashore in Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a dangerous Category 4 storm. Despite weakening to a post-tropical cyclone, Helene was still causing “catastrophic, historic” flooding in the southern Appalachians late Friday night, the National Hurricane Center said.  

Helene was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the hurricane center said. High wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.

“I am deeply saddened by the loss of life and devastation caused by Hurricane Helene across the Southeast,” read a statement released on Saturday from President Biden. “The road to recovery will be long, but know that my Administration will be with you every step of the way. We’re not going to walk away. We’re not going to give up.”

More than 2.68 million customers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia were without power Saturday night, according to utility tracker Find Energy.    

At least 62 people across multiple states were killed during Hurricane Helene. A spokesperson for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said 17 people were killed in the state. A first responder was among the dead, Kemp said earlier Friday. In South Carolina, 23 people died from the storm, officials confirmed to CBS News. The deaths include two firefighters and two people who were killed when trees fell on residences.

In Florida, 12 people were killed officials confirmed to CBS News, including nine people who died in Pinellas County. Statewide, crews have conducted thousands of rescue missions. 

In North Carolina, 10 people were killed officials confirmed to CBS News, ranging in age from 4 to 75. Of those, one person died in a collision on a flooded road, Gov. Roy Cooper said, while another was killed when a tree fell on a house, according to the Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency. 

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin confirmed in a Friday news conference that one person was killed.

The National Weather Service Saturday reported the highest rainfall totals from Helene for each state. The rural northwest North Carolina area of Busick has received the highest overall rainfall, with a staggering 30.78 inches so far.

Sumatra, located in Florida’s Big Bend region, recorded 15.91 inches of rain, while Tallulah in northeast Georgia received 14.22 inches. South Carolina’s Table Rock recorded 14.34 inches. 

Helene made landfall about 10 miles west of Perry, Florida, at 11:10 p.m. EDT Thursday, according to the hurricane center, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph.

Meteorologist Stephanie Abrams of The Weather Channel said on “CBS Mornings” Friday that Helene is the fourth hurricane to make landfall on the Gulf Coast this year, which has happened only five other times in history.

Helene is the third hurricane to hit the Big Bend region in the last 13 months. In 2023, Hurricane Idalia, a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, generated a record-breaking storm surge from Tampa to the Big Bend. Last August, Hurricane Debby also hit the area.

“The early reports we’ve received is that the damage in those counties that were really in the eye of the storm has exceeded the damage of Idalia and Debby combined,” DeSantis told reporters in a news conference Friday.

“We have a lot of damage throughout the state, water mostly on the west coast and the peninsula,” DeSantis said.  

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell traveled to Florida Saturday to survey the damage, the White House said in a statement.

Mr. Biden has issued emergency declarations for Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, all of which free up federal resources that will go towards recovery and assistance efforts.

More than 800 FEMA personnel have been deployed to the region to assist in the response, the White House said.  

In East Tennessee, the flooding was so bad that two dams were at risk of failing. The Cocke County city of Newport was evacuated as a result, but both dams ultimately held.

“Rescues have been made, attempts have been made, some people are stranded on the roofs of their homes and things like that,” Cocke County Sheriff CJ Ball said.

The Gulf Coast community of Keaton Beach, Florida, was still recovering from Idalia and Debby when Helene appeared to deliver the knockout punch. Taylor County officials estimate 90% of homes in Keaton Beach are gone.

And further south in Cedar Key, officials say it is not safe for residents or rescue workers. 

In the waters off Florida’s Sanibel Island, a Coast Guard crew made a daring rescue, saving a man and his dog who were stranded on his 36-foot sailboat.

In the Big Bend fishing village of Steinhatchee, storm-weary residents prayed Helene would miss them, but the waterside docks and restaurants that once stood here though are now gone.

The storm surge shoved buildings off their foundations. Linda Wicker lost the restaurant she has owned for 20 years. She seemed more shaken by what she saw across her village, homes torn apart by the wind and the deep water.

“If you let it play with your mind, you just can’t go there,” Wicker said. “You can’t. It’s horrible.”
 
Wicker and her family are already thinking about how to restore, what Helene washed away.
 
“There’s a lot of folks that don’t have a place to go, have nothing, no money, no home, no nothing, so we got to work to help them too,” Wicker said.

On historic Davis Islands in Tampa, streets were under water and boats had washed up on land. One home was gutted by flames. Marie Terry, who lives next door, would have been in the neighborhood unless her daughter had insisted she evacuate.

“I’m just in shock,” Terry told CBS News. “It’s just such a beautiful house, and to see it like this, it’s like, what could have happened?”

Access to the Barrier Islands west of Tampa just opened to residents late Saturday. Officials said communities there have no power, no water and catastrophic flood damage. 

In Atlanta, an apartment complex flooded, and neighbors had to rescue each other. Sam Oni, 83, was one of them.

“But I thought I would somehow escape it, but I did not…and I owe a lot to my neighbors,” Oni told CBS News.

Serena Rodriguez was asleep in bed in her Atlanta home when she started floating, but it was not dream.

“It was like all around, the water, it was like an island,” Rodriguez told CBS News. “…A nightmare mostly. Yeah, I was it was insane. Like, I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock all the time. I never experienced anything like it.”

In Valdosta, Georgia, entire neighborhoods were under water, with more than 115 structures sustaining severe damage, Gov. Brian Kemp said in a news conference Friday, before he then toured Valdosta on Saturday. 

“What is looks like from the air, I mean, it looks like a tornado went off, it looks like a bomb went off,” Kemp told reporters. 

Several airports closed because of the storm, and airlines canceled nearly 1,300 flights Thursday, according to FlightAware. About 500 U.S. flights were canceled as of Saturday afternoon.  

There have been more than 100 swift water rescues across North Carolina. The intense flooding has swept away cars and dumpsters, and even propane tanks were seen floating in the water.

“This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina,” Cooper said in a news briefing.  

Video shows sections of Asheville underwater. Floodwaters pushed by the remnants of Helene left North Carolina’s largest mountain city largely cut off Saturday by damaged roads and a lack of power and cellphone service, part of a swath of destruction across southern Appalachia that left an unknown number dead and countless worried relatives unable to reach loved ones. 

In North Carolina alone, more than 400 roads remained closed on Saturday as floodwaters began to recede and reveal the extent of damage. Cooper said that supplies were being airlifted to that part of the state.

More than 175 people sheltered in a school in Tallahassee.

Annie Sloan, who was one of them, told CBS News Miami: “I decided to come to the shelter because I live alone and basically my son came to take me to Georgia, but we discovered the hurricane was going to Georgia also, and I decided to just come here and shelter because my husband passed, and I don’t want to be home alone.”

Most gas stations in the Tallahassee area were shut down or out of gas. CBS News senior weather and climate producer David Parkinson described Helene as a “gargantuan” storm.

NASA shared video of the hurricane as seen from the International Space Station, showing the size of the storm as it churned through the Gulf of Mexico Thursday afternoon.

Exceptionally warm Gulf water fuels hurricanes

Record-warm water in the Gulf almost certainly acted like jet fuel in intensifying the storm. Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, recently noted that ocean heat content in the Gulf of Mexico is the highest on record. Warm water is a necessary ingredient to strengthen tropical systems.

Sea surface temperatures in the path of Helene were as warm as 89 degrees Fahrenheit — 2 to 4 degrees above normal.

These record water temperatures have been made significantly more likely by human-caused climate change, according to Climate Central. The North Atlantic Ocean as a whole has seen record warm temperatures in 2024, storing 90% of the excess heat from climate change produced by greenhouse gas pollution.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1.

contributed to this report.