At least 52 dead and millions without power after Helene's deadly march across southeastern US

PERRY, Florida (AP) — Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue Saturday — as the cleanup began from the tempest that killed at least 52 people, caused widespread destruction across the US Southeast and left millions of customers without power.

Helene blew ashore in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday packing winds of 140 mph (225 kph) and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks, churning up tornadoes and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was essentially cut off because of 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 staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday. And the rescues continued into Saturday in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville is under water.

"To say this caught us off-guard would be an understatement," said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.
There have been deaths in the county, but Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said Saturday that he wasn't ready to report specifics, partially because communication outages hindered efforts to contact next of kin. Multiple cell towers are down in the area.

Among the desperate family members waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, who last talked to her sister as the storm was hitting Asheville. "Scary" is how it sounded to her. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, said her sister told her that she was going to head out to check on guests at a vacation cabin.

Cavanaugh hasn't been able to reach her since then, and the area is now flooded.

"I think that people are just completely stuck, wherever they are, with no cell service, no electricity," she said.

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

It's creating flooding that hasn't been this bad in a century in North Carolina. And in Atlanta, where only car roofs peeked above flood waters in some neighbourhoods, 11.12 inches (28.24 centimetres) of rain fell over 48 hours. That's the most the city has seen over two days since record keeping began in 1878.

President Joe Biden on Saturday called the devastation caused by Helene "overwhelming" and said his administration was committed to helping the huge swath of the Southeast impacted by the storm to recover.

Helene is the deadliest tropical storm in South Carolina 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 US is between $95 billion and $110 billion.

Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours.

Follow The Gleaner on X and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.