Authorities across large parts of the south-eastern United States are facing the daunting task of cleaning up from Hurricane Helene, one of the most powerful to hit the country.
The background: Before moving north through Georgia and into Tennessee and the Carolinas, Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend region as a powerful category four hurricane on Thursday night, packing 225 km/h winds.
Downgraded late on Friday to a post-tropical cyclone, the remnants of Helene continued to produce heavy rains across several states, sparking massive flooding that threatened to cause dam failures that could inundate entire towns.
At least 64 deaths were reported by Sunday (Saturday evening local time) and officials feared still more bodies would be discovered across several states.
At least 3.25 million people woke up without power across five states, with authorities warning it could be several days before services were fully restored.
The worst outages were in South Carolina with more than one million homes and businesses without power, and Georgia with 777,000 without power.
Buildings that were destroyed by the storm surge from Hurricane Helene are seen along the shoreline in Cedar Key, Florida. Source: AAP / Stephen Smith/AP
The key quote: “The devastation we’re witnessing in Hurricane Helene’s wake has been overwhelming,” US President Joe Biden said on Saturday.
“Jill and I continue to pray for all of those who have lost loved ones and for everyone impacted by this storm.
“Our focus is on life-saving and life-sustaining response efforts in the south-east.”
What else to know: Helene was unusually large for a Gulf hurricane, forecasters said, though a storm’s size is not the same as its strength, which is based on maximum sustained wind speeds.
A few hours before landfall, Helene’s tropical-storm winds extended outward 500 km, according to the NHC.
By comparison, Idalia, another major hurricane that struck Florida’s Big Bend region in 2023, had tropical-storm winds extending 260 km about eight hours before it made landfall.