Authorities rushed to airlift relief supplies and restore communications and roads in flooded Asheville, North Carolina, on Sunday, as residents along Florida’s storm-ravaged coast gathered for church services amid the debris from Hurricane Helene.
Massive rain from the powers that be Helene In the southeastern United States, people remained stranded, homeless and waiting for rescue. Cleanup efforts continued Sunday after a storm that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction in southeastern states and left several million people without power.
As the sun rose over Florida’s Big Bend on Sunday after Hurricane Helene hit the region, many houses of worship were still dealing with power outages, damaged roofs and debris from the hurricane – and with the knowledge that many of their parishioners were suffering another devastating blow had to endure a storm.
More than 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers) away in Texas, Jessica Drye Turner begged for someone to rescue her family members stranded on their roof in Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by rising floodwaters. “They watch 18-wheelers and cars driving by,” Turner wrote poignantly Facebook Post on Friday.
But in a follow-up message shared widely on social media Saturday, Turner said help did not arrive in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her six-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and the three drowned.
“I cannot express in words the sadness, heartache and devastation my sisters and I are going through, nor can I imagine the pain that lies ahead,” she wrote.
Helene blown ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).
From there it moved quickly through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it “looked like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then flooded the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that pushed streams and rivers over their banks and strained dams.
Western North Carolina was isolated due to landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where Dozens of patients and employees were rescued by helicopter from the roof of a hospital on Friday. And rescue operations continued into the next day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.
The storm was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.
It triggered the worst flooding in North Carolina in a century. One community, Spruce Pine, was flooded with more than 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain Tuesday through Saturday.
In Florida’s Big Bend, some lost almost everything they owned and emerged from the storm without a pair of shoes. With shrines still dark in a county where 97% of customers had no power Sunday morning, some churches canceled their regular services while others, such as Faith Baptist Church in Perry, opted to hold services outdoors.
Standing water and tree debris still cover the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. In a message on the church’s Facebook page, the church asked parishioners to “pray for our community.”
“There is still no electricity or water – so the toilets are not available. We have chairs or you can bring your own!” the post reads.
Atlanta received 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in two days since records began in 1878.
President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene’s devastation was “overwhelming” and vowed to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina and made federal funding available for affected individuals.
With at least 25 deaths in South Carolina, Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths were also reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
Moody’s Analytics expects property damage to range from $15 billion to $26 billion. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimate of Helene’s total damage and economic loss in the U.S. is between $95 billion and $110 billion.
Evacuations began before the storm and continued with the evacuation of the lakes overfilled damsincluding one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the film “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded houses.
The 11 confirmed deaths in Florida included nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation zone on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
None of the victims were from Taylor County, where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of there Hurricane Idalia hit last year with almost the same intensity.
Taylor County is located in Florida’s Big Bend and has not been directly hit by a hurricane in years. But after Idalia and two other storms in just over a year, the area is starting to feel like a hurricane highway.
“It brings home to everyone the reality of what the disasters are like now,” said John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing village and weekend getaway spot.
Climate change has exacerbated the conditions that allow such storms to thrive. They intensify quickly in the warmer waters, sometimes turning into strong cyclones within a few hours.
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 the record warm sea temperatures.