The death toll in the wake of Hurricane Helene has now risen to 52, ABC News has reported, as the National Weather Service (NWS) warned of “catastrophic, historic flooding” over portions of the Southern Appalachians.
Helene made landfall in Florida on Thursday as a powerful category 4 storm. Forecasters warned of “a catastrophic and deadly storm surge.” It was the strongest hurricane on record to landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region, The Weather Channel said.
Helene became a tropical storm on Tuesday, becoming the season’s most-powerful hurricane by the time it reached land.
“Shelter in place. All roads in Western N.C. should be considered closed,” North Carolina’s Department of Transportation (NCDOT) wrote on its website.
“This is the most significant natural disaster that any one of us has ever seen in Western North Carolina,” Ryan Cole, Buncombe County assistant emergency services director, told local news station ABC11.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urged those in Helene’s path “to take immediate action to protect themselves as the storm approached,” highlighting a “risk for dangerous flash and flooding in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.”
An update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) late Friday warned of “record-breaking” flooding across the southern Appalachians, but said that conditions would begin to improve Friday night and on Saturday “following the catastrophic flooding over the past two days.“
The agency said deadly hazards could remain after the system had passed, including downed power lines and flooded areas.
Millions were left without power across the Eastern U.S. early Saturday following Helene’s deadly assault.
South Carolina was the worst-affected state, with 1,089,535 outages recorded as of early Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us, a service that tracks disruptions. In South Carolina’s Greenville County alone, 258,688 outages were recorded.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said on X, formerly Twitter, that work was underway to clear roads and restore power, but he added that this would “take some time, many days in some places.”
Some 787,428 outages were recorded in Georgia, 728,427 in North Carolina, 527,945 in Florida, 224,841 in Ohio, and 141,407 in Kentucky. There were an additional 72,962 in Indiana, 70,991 in West Virginia, and 62,091 in Tennessee, for a combined total of 3,705,627.
The NHC warned power outages could be long-lasting and recommended anyone using generators to place them at least 20 feet away from doors, windows, and garages to avoid deadly carbon-monoxide poisoning.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has previously declared a state of emergency for 61 counties in his state.
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