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  • What to know about FEMA efforts in North Carolina after reported threats lead to an arrest

    What to know about FEMA efforts in North Carolina after reported threats lead to an arrest

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    The Federal Emergency Management Agency has resumed door-to-door neighborhood outreaches in some areas afflicted by Hurricane Helene as one man is accused of making a threat against its employees.Amid reports of militia involvement, the agency told CNN it was the subject of several threats and the alleged threat from the man later arrested was the main one it was aware of when it decided to pull back on outreach.“I wanted to make sure we protected our staff on the ground while we worked diligently with local law enforcement to understand the full situation,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said.“The threat was more limited than initially reported and mitigated by law enforcement,” FEMA said Monday.A former FEMA administrator told CNN threats in the field have been rare in the past. “This is unprecedented. I know we’ve had individuals but not an area or a group that’s threatening FEMA,” said Craig Fugate, who was the agency’s head from 2009 to 2017.FEMA has approved more than $96 million for 75,000 households in North Carolina, part of the $507 million approved for residents and communities in states hit by Helene and Hurricane Milton, the agency also announced Monday.Here is what we know about relief efforts after the two latest major hurricanes:Man arrested near relief siteA man who was in possession of a handgun and rifle has been charged with a misdemeanor, Going Armed to the Terror of the Public, according to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office.CNN has reached out to William Jacob Parsons, 44, who is free on bail, but didn’t reach him at any of his listed numbers. He was taken into custody Saturday outside a grocery store that is functioning as a storm relief site, the sheriff’s office said.The initial report to deputies said a truckload of militia were involved in making threats, but investigators determined Parsons acted alone, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.FEMA: There were other threatsWhile Parsons’ alleged threat was the primary concern, the agency had been the target of threats and harassment of employees for several days, a FEMA spokesperson told CNN.FEMA then temporarily moved its field teams to disaster recovery centers – there are four in North Carolina – and worked with law enforcement to assess the nature of the threats.The agency announced Monday it had resumed outreach efforts in communities after about a day.“Thanks to our close partnership with Gov. Roy Cooper and his team, as well as local law enforcement, FEMA teams will soon be back doing what they do best – meeting people where they are and going door to door to register survivors for assistance,” Criswell said. “FEMA and the entire federal family will be in North Carolina for as long as it takes to help these communities recover.”Battling misinformationAfter disasters like hurricanes and the Maui wildfires, FEMA has had to deal with wild rumors about its relief efforts, which include an initial $750 payment to many victims.But “the contours of this misinformation are unlike anything we’ve seen before,” a senior administration official told CNN last week.Senior US officials have instructed public affairs teams at federal agencies to ramp up social media posts from government accounts with photos illustrating how federal workers are clearing debris and dispensing aid, a US official familiar with the effort said.The misinformation has prompted FEMA to launch a webpage to respond to rumors and confirm facts related to the Hurricane Helene response and recovery, such as disaster assistance and funding for disaster response.Last week Criswell said she thinks the “dangerous narrative” is political.“It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do,” Criswell said Oct. 6 on ABC.A rumor promoted by former President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk, among others, suggested the federal government was diverting aid. Another claims the Biden administration – along with Gov. Cooper, a Democrat – was withholding or diverting relief funds because the hardest hit areas are prominently Republican.Trump has also baselessly claimed that some of the diverted funds were being used to help migrants who are in the country illegally.“We have had the complete support of the state. We have had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous – truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” Criswell said.What North Carolina has doneCooper said Monday he was directing the state’s Public Safety Department to help FEMA officials coordinate with law enforcement to ensure the safety of FEMA’s teams.The governor didn’t give specifics about which elements of the department, which includes the highway patrol and the National Guard, would be involved.“We know that significant misinformation online contributes to threats against response workers on the ground, and the safety of responders must be a priority,” Cooper said in a statement.National Guard troops are already on the ground in western North Carolina, part of a task force of more than 1,500 soldiers and airmen.Federal aid for Helene tops $850 million, FEMA saysFEMA has approved $507 million in relief funds for residents and communities and $351 million for debris removal in states affected by Hurricane Helene.“Disaster survivors in certain areas of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia can begin their recovery process by applying for federal assistance through FEMA,” the agency said.The agency broke down the disaster assistance figures by state:Florida: $177.6 million for 56,900 householdsGeorgia: $103 million for 106,300 householdsSouth Carolina: $119 million for 133,900 householdsTennessee: $10.7 million for 2,200 householdsVirginia: $4.2 million for 1,330 householdsThere are three primary ways to apply for FEMA assistance: phone, online or at a recovery center.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency has resumed door-to-door neighborhood outreaches in some areas afflicted by Hurricane Helene as one man is accused of making a threat against its employees.

    Amid reports of militia involvement, the agency told CNN it was the subject of several threats and the alleged threat from the man later arrested was the main one it was aware of when it decided to pull back on outreach.

    “I wanted to make sure we protected our staff on the ground while we worked diligently with local law enforcement to understand the full situation,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said.

    “The threat was more limited than initially reported and mitigated by law enforcement,” FEMA said Monday.

    A former FEMA administrator told CNN threats in the field have been rare in the past. “This is unprecedented. I know we’ve had individuals but not an area or a group that’s threatening FEMA,” said Craig Fugate, who was the agency’s head from 2009 to 2017.

    FEMA has approved more than $96 million for 75,000 households in North Carolina, part of the $507 million approved for residents and communities in states hit by Helene and Hurricane Milton, the agency also announced Monday.

    Here is what we know about relief efforts after the two latest major hurricanes:

    Man arrested near relief site

    A man who was in possession of a handgun and rifle has been charged with a misdemeanor, Going Armed to the Terror of the Public, according to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office.

    CNN has reached out to William Jacob Parsons, 44, who is free on bail, but didn’t reach him at any of his listed numbers. He was taken into custody Saturday outside a grocery store that is functioning as a storm relief site, the sheriff’s office said.

    The initial report to deputies said a truckload of militia were involved in making threats, but investigators determined Parsons acted alone, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

    FEMA: There were other threats

    While Parsons’ alleged threat was the primary concern, the agency had been the target of threats and harassment of employees for several days, a FEMA spokesperson told CNN.

    FEMA then temporarily moved its field teams to disaster recovery centers – there are four in North Carolina – and worked with law enforcement to assess the nature of the threats.

    The agency announced Monday it had resumed outreach efforts in communities after about a day.

    “Thanks to our close partnership with Gov. Roy Cooper and his team, as well as local law enforcement, FEMA teams will soon be back doing what they do best – meeting people where they are and going door to door to register survivors for assistance,” Criswell said. “FEMA and the entire federal family will be in North Carolina for as long as it takes to help these communities recover.”

    Battling misinformation

    After disasters like hurricanes and the Maui wildfires, FEMA has had to deal with wild rumors about its relief efforts, which include an initial $750 payment to many victims.

    But “the contours of this misinformation are unlike anything we’ve seen before,” a senior administration official told CNN last week.

    Senior US officials have instructed public affairs teams at federal agencies to ramp up social media posts from government accounts with photos illustrating how federal workers are clearing debris and dispensing aid, a US official familiar with the effort said.

    The misinformation has prompted FEMA to launch a webpage to respond to rumors and confirm facts related to the Hurricane Helene response and recovery, such as disaster assistance and funding for disaster response.

    Last week Criswell said she thinks the “dangerous narrative” is political.

    “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do,” Criswell said Oct. 6 on ABC.

    A rumor promoted by former President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk, among others, suggested the federal government was diverting aid. Another claims the Biden administration – along with Gov. Cooper, a Democrat – was withholding or diverting relief funds because the hardest hit areas are prominently Republican.

    Trump has also baselessly claimed that some of the diverted funds were being used to help migrants who are in the country illegally.

    “We have had the complete support of the state. We have had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous – truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” Criswell said.

    What North Carolina has done

    Cooper said Monday he was directing the state’s Public Safety Department to help FEMA officials coordinate with law enforcement to ensure the safety of FEMA’s teams.

    The governor didn’t give specifics about which elements of the department, which includes the highway patrol and the National Guard, would be involved.

    “We know that significant misinformation online contributes to threats against response workers on the ground, and the safety of responders must be a priority,” Cooper said in a statement.

    National Guard troops are already on the ground in western North Carolina, part of a task force of more than 1,500 soldiers and airmen.

    Federal aid for Helene tops $850 million, FEMA says

    FEMA has approved $507 million in relief funds for residents and communities and $351 million for debris removal in states affected by Hurricane Helene.

    “Disaster survivors in certain areas of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia can begin their recovery process by applying for federal assistance through FEMA,” the agency said.

    The agency broke down the disaster assistance figures by state:

    • Florida: $177.6 million for 56,900 households
    • Georgia: $103 million for 106,300 households
    • South Carolina: $119 million for 133,900 households
    • Tennessee: $10.7 million for 2,200 households
    • Virginia: $4.2 million for 1,330 households

    There are three primary ways to apply for FEMA assistance: phone, online or at a recovery center.

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  • Chicago Chefs Raise $30K for Hurricane Helene Relief as Locals Prep for Hurricane Milton

    Chicago Chefs Raise $30K for Hurricane Helene Relief as Locals Prep for Hurricane Milton

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    Over the weekend, Chicago Chefs raised more than $30,000 to benefit Hurricane Helene relief efforts. The fundraiser, held on Sunday, October 6 at Chicago Q in Gold Coast, was a success, says chef Art Smith.

    Smith is from Florida, which was in Helene’s path, and the chef’s connection has led to the launch of a second fundraiser as another storm, Hurricane Milton, is forecast to hit Florida on Wednesday, October 9. As the Chicago Marathon will take place this weekend, Smith is holding an event so runners — and their supporters — can carb-load before Sunday, October 13’s run.

    The event will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, October 12 on the second floor of Chicago Q, 1160 N. Dearborn Street. There’s a suggested donation of $65 with all proceeds going to World Central Kitchen’s hurricane relief efforts. Smith says he’s got a celebrity chef lined up to help at the event but can’t reveal their name due to security reasons.

    Milk Bar teams with Portillo’s

    As Christina Tosi’s Milk Bar is opening its first Chicago location, the bakery has already lined up a collaboration with another Chicago entity. Portillo’s, the Chicago street food chain with around 80 locations scattered in 10 states is, starting on Tuesday, October 8, launching the Portillo’s Chocolate Cake Cookie. It combines Portillo’s famous chocolate cake — which was the inspiration for the cake that appeared in Season 1 of The Bear, and a Milk Bar chocolate cookie. They’ll be available individually wrapped at Portillo’s or in multiples of six packed into a cookie tin available online on Milk Bar’s site.

    Portillo’s and Milk Bar are collaborating.
    Portillo’s

    La Gondola finds a new home

    Earlier this year, La Gondola closed its location inside a Lakeview strip mall after 40 years at 2914 N. Ashland Avenue. But ownership has found a new home inside a West Town restaurant with a menu of old favorites. Loyal customers can visit Mirella’s Tavern, 2056 W. Division Street, and find their old Lakeview favorites. Both Mirella’s and La Gondola coexist with the two parties working together.

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    Ashok Selvam

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  • Biden and Harris to travel, survey Hurricane Helene damage

    Biden and Harris to travel, survey Hurricane Helene damage

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    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit hurricane-ravaged areas in the Southeast Wednesday to assess the damage and coordinate relief efforts and funding.Biden will travel to North and South Carolina, while Harris will head to Georgia.On Tuesday, Biden directed “every available resource” to rescue and recovery efforts and has committed to helping devastated communities, saying he is prepared to ask Congress for more emergency relief funding.”We have to jump-start this recovery process. People are scared to death. People wonder whether they’re going to make it. We still haven’t heard from a whole lot of people,” Biden said. “This is urgent. People have to know how to get the information they need. So, we’ll be there until this work is done.”Biden says he has been in constant contact with state and local officials and is urging people to apply for federal assistance, including basics like food and water and for funds to help with repairing homes.More than 4,500 federal workers, including 1,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are deployed across the Southeast. Many are working to distribute millions of meals and water, thousands of tarps, and over a hundred generators, while rescue teams hope to help those who remain trapped.Biden and Harris emphasized the timing of their trips, saying they must ensure they do not detract from ongoing rescue and recovery.The White House suggested an earlier visit, like former President Donald Trump’s trip to Georgia on Monday, could take away from resources needed for hurricane victims.During that trip, Trump falsely accused Biden of “sleeping” at his beach house, ignoring the disaster and purposely neglecting Republican states and storm victims. He also falsely stated Biden did not respond to calls for help from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.Kemp and Biden had already spoken a day earlier. Kemp and other Republican leaders also said their states were getting everything they need.Wednesday’s trip to Georgia may also present a political opportunity for Harris — a chance to show empathy in the midst of a humanitarian crisis as she campaigns for president.Harris says she also plans to visit North Carolina in the coming days.

    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit hurricane-ravaged areas in the Southeast Wednesday to assess the damage and coordinate relief efforts and funding.

    Biden will travel to North and South Carolina, while Harris will head to Georgia.

    On Tuesday, Biden directed “every available resource” to rescue and recovery efforts and has committed to helping devastated communities, saying he is prepared to ask Congress for more emergency relief funding.

    “We have to jump-start this recovery process. People are scared to death. People wonder whether they’re going to make it. We still haven’t heard from a whole lot of people,” Biden said. “This is urgent. People have to know how to get the information they need. So, we’ll be there until this work is done.”

    Biden says he has been in constant contact with state and local officials and is urging people to apply for federal assistance, including basics like food and water and for funds to help with repairing homes.

    More than 4,500 federal workers, including 1,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are deployed across the Southeast. Many are working to distribute millions of meals and water, thousands of tarps, and over a hundred generators, while rescue teams hope to help those who remain trapped.

    Biden and Harris emphasized the timing of their trips, saying they must ensure they do not detract from ongoing rescue and recovery.

    The White House suggested an earlier visit, like former President Donald Trump’s trip to Georgia on Monday, could take away from resources needed for hurricane victims.

    During that trip, Trump falsely accused Biden of “sleeping” at his beach house, ignoring the disaster and purposely neglecting Republican states and storm victims. He also falsely stated Biden did not respond to calls for help from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

    Kemp and Biden had already spoken a day earlier. Kemp and other Republican leaders also said their states were getting everything they need.

    Wednesday’s trip to Georgia may also present a political opportunity for Harris — a chance to show empathy in the midst of a humanitarian crisis as she campaigns for president.

    Harris says she also plans to visit North Carolina in the coming days.

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  • Helene impacts: Storm leaves at least 64 dead in Southeast

    Helene impacts: Storm leaves at least 64 dead in Southeast

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    Helene turned neighborhoods into lakes, picked up cars like toys in North Carolina

    Communities in the Southeast are grappling with widespread devastation after Helene made landfall as the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region Thursday and tore through multiple states, killing at least 64 people, knocking out power to millions and trapping families in floodwaters. In hard-hit North Carolina, days of unrelenting flooding have turned roads into waterways, left many without basic necessities and strained state resources. Here’s the latest:• At least 64 dead across 5 states: Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. At least 10 people are dead in North Carolina, a release from Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said Saturday evening. At least 23 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, authorities said. In Georgia, at least 17 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. In Florida, at least 11 people have died, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. And in Craig County, Virginia, one person died in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday.Video above: House floating away, collapsing in NC as Helene floods area• Dozens unaccounted amid communications outage: More than 200 people have been rescued from floodwaters in North Carolina after Helene wrought “biblical devastation,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday. Still, over 60 people were unaccounted for in Buncombe County – which includes the hard-hit city of Asheville – and over 150 search and rescue operations were underway. “This is looking to be Buncombe County’s own Hurricane Katrina,” county manager Avril Pinder said, adding the county’s emergency services were overwhelmed. Crews are conducting welfare checks as communication continues to be disrupted, with no cell phone service in the region for at least “several days,” according to officials. Emergency call volumes are also exceedingly high, with the county receiving over 5,500 911 calls and conducting more than 130 swift water rescues since Thursday. East of Buncombe County, over 20 air rescues have been conducted in McDowell County since early Saturday morning. The emergency center is also being inundated with calls, many of which involve patients “entrapped with severe trauma, running out of oxygen or essential medical supplies.” However emergency response efforts are hampered by massive landslides, downed trees, power lines and severely flooded roads. • Nearly 400 roads closed in North Carolina: In the aftermath of Helene, about 390 roads and dozens of highways remained closed in western North Carolina as of Sunday morning, according to the state’s transportation department. In Buncombe County, officials urged people to stay off roads to allow emergency vehicles through and to be aware of “the ground moving” as the county deals with landslides. County officials have requested additional resources from the state and federal government. Access to clean drinking water is another problem throughout the state. Seven water plants in Avery, Burke, Haywood, Jackson, Rutherford, Watauga and Yancey counties are closed, impacting nearly 70,000 households. A total of 17 water plants have reported having no power. There are 50 boil water advisories in effect across western communities.Video above: Fire department rescues people trapped in homes by flooding• Millions without power in Southeast: The remnants of Helene continued to knock out power for several states across the eastern US on Saturday, with about 2.5 million customers left in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us.• ‘It looks like a bomb went off’ in Georgia: Helene “spared no one,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday. Among the 17 people who died in Georgia was a mother and her 1-month-old twin boys, a 7-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, and a 58-year-old man, according to Kemp. “It looks like a tornado went off; it looks like a bomb went off,” Kemp said.• South Carolina ‘devastated’ by Helene: The National Weather Service Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, said Saturday it is “devastated by the horrific flooding and widespread wind damage that was caused by Hurricane Helene.” The agency called it “the worst event in our office’s history,” in a Facebook post Saturday evening.Video above: People stranded on Tennessee hospital roof• ‘Complete obliteration’ along Florida coast: Days after Helene slammed Florida on Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane, countless residents are displaced, boil water notices are in place in multiple counties and power is out for over 243,000 customers. “You see some just complete obliteration for homes,” DeSantis said Saturday, noting Helene impacted some of the same communities affected by hurricanes Idalia and Debby. “That’s been an awful lot thrown at one community in just a 14, 15 month time period,” he said. Cleanup and recovery has started across the state, including indirectly hit Taylor County, where crews have cleared 90% of larger roads, the sheriff’s office said Saturday.• Additional rain expected: Helene became a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, but rainfall is expected to continue this weekend across parts of the southern Appalachian region. Additional totals of half an inch are expected for areas of western North Carolina, including Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Up to 2 inches is possible for portions of Virginia and West Virginia through Monday. “Additional rainfall is not expected to exacerbate ongoing flooding but may lead to excessive runoff due to saturated soils,” the weather service said Sunday morning.’We all really need help here’Since Helene started swamping the region, it’s turned neighborhoods into lakes, lifted cars like toys, snapped trees like twigs and left businesses underwater. Piles of thick mud and floating debris blocked streets as torrential rains collapsed roadways and washed out bridges. It’s left hundreds of people in North Carolina stranded in homes, hospitals or transportation systems, awaiting rescue.”The priority is getting people out,” North Carolina Gov. Cooper told CNN affiliate Spectrum News. “And getting supplies in.”But officials face a major hurdle: there’s a barrier: “Everything is flooded. It is very difficult for them to see exactly what the problems are,” Cooper said.As floodwaters inundated Asheville, North Carolina, Friday, residents in an apartment complex watched as units were submerged in water.Video above: Large boats pushed onto lawns in Treasure Island, FloridaStevie Hollander, a 26-year-old who lives on the second floor with his sister and her fiancé, told CNN, “the water almost reached us but thankfully went down.” Most of the residents in the first-floor units left before the water rushed in, but some relocated to units on higher floors to stay with other residents, Hollander said.”We all really need help here. We need water, power of sorts, food, gas. Anything.” he said, “We just don’t really know what to do.”Floodwaters left Hollander and his family stranded in the apartment. They attempted to drive north Saturday, but road closures made it impossible and they had to return to the apartment. The family only has four water bottles left and little nonperishable food, Hollander said.In Black Mountain, North Carolina, Sofia Grace Kunst contended with another problem – a landslide.Video above: Drone footage shows cars driving through flooded waters in Asheville, North CarolinaKunst, who was there on a weeklong trip, was playing the card game Uno with six of her friends in a small room within a dining hall. She remembers the exact time mud and debris shattered a window and poured into the room on Friday: 9:10 a.m. Someone yelled, “Landslide! Everybody run,” so they all did.“I see this giant wave of like mud and trees and rocks just coming towards us,” Kunst told CNN, estimating it was five or six feet high.From there, everything happened very quickly.She ran into the main room of the dining hall, only to see the wall completely cave in. They fled to the porch of the dining hall, where many of her peers were crying, and Kunst sat in shock, she said.At that point, she realized she was barefoot, and still had her Uno cards in hand.The group didn’t know where to go next because of water flowing on every side of them, but they ultimately decided to trek through muddy water to get to a parking lot on higher ground. After being stranded there for a while, they were able to get to a shelter,“That’s when it hit most people. There were a lot of tears. For me, it really didn’t hit me emotionally, but my body started reacting. I started shaking like crazy. I felt like I had to, like, scream or let off energy,” Kunst said.Deluge ‘wiped out’ North Carolina businesses before tourist seasonIn the community of Asheville, small businesses were left in shambles just before October, its biggest tourist season of the year.As the day broke Saturday, business owner Patrick McNamara was able to take a first look at the destruction left in Helene’s wake. McNamara has run a small milk distribution business in Asheville for 12 years.”The floodwaters were four feet above the dock,” McNamara said, “So the entire building has been wiped out.”His business machinery was strewn across the warehouse, milk spoiled and inches of mud pilled all over the floor. McNamara estimates he’ll have to get rid of thousands of gallons of milk.McNamara, concerned about access to resources, said he may have to consider relocating the business to another facility.As he begins a lengthy cleanup process, McNamara is confident the community will be able to patch itself together and have a successful tourist season despite the devastation.

    Communities in the Southeast are grappling with widespread devastation after Helene made landfall as the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region Thursday and tore through multiple states, killing at least 64 people, knocking out power to millions and trapping families in floodwaters. In hard-hit North Carolina, days of unrelenting flooding have turned roads into waterways, left many without basic necessities and strained state resources. Here’s the latest:

    • At least 64 dead across 5 states: Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. At least 10 people are dead in North Carolina, a release from Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said Saturday evening. At least 23 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, authorities said. In Georgia, at least 17 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. In Florida, at least 11 people have died, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. And in Craig County, Virginia, one person died in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday.

    Video above: House floating away, collapsing in NC as Helene floods area

    • Dozens unaccounted amid communications outage: More than 200 people have been rescued from floodwaters in North Carolina after Helene wrought “biblical devastation,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday. Still, over 60 people were unaccounted for in Buncombe County – which includes the hard-hit city of Asheville – and over 150 search and rescue operations were underway. “This is looking to be Buncombe County’s own Hurricane Katrina,” county manager Avril Pinder said, adding the county’s emergency services were overwhelmed. Crews are conducting welfare checks as communication continues to be disrupted, with no cell phone service in the region for at least “several days,” according to officials. Emergency call volumes are also exceedingly high, with the county receiving over 5,500 911 calls and conducting more than 130 swift water rescues since Thursday. East of Buncombe County, over 20 air rescues have been conducted in McDowell County since early Saturday morning. The emergency center is also being inundated with calls, many of which involve patients “entrapped with severe trauma, running out of oxygen or essential medical supplies.” However emergency response efforts are hampered by massive landslides, downed trees, power lines and severely flooded roads.

    • Nearly 400 roads closed in North Carolina: In the aftermath of Helene, about 390 roads and dozens of highways remained closed in western North Carolina as of Sunday morning, according to the state’s transportation department. In Buncombe County, officials urged people to stay off roads to allow emergency vehicles through and to be aware of “the ground moving” as the county deals with landslides. County officials have requested additional resources from the state and federal government. Access to clean drinking water is another problem throughout the state. Seven water plants in Avery, Burke, Haywood, Jackson, Rutherford, Watauga and Yancey counties are closed, impacting nearly 70,000 households. A total of 17 water plants have reported having no power. There are 50 boil water advisories in effect across western communities.

    Video above: Fire department rescues people trapped in homes by flooding

    • Millions without power in Southeast: The remnants of Helene continued to knock out power for several states across the eastern US on Saturday, with about 2.5 million customers left in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to PowerOutage.us.

    • ‘It looks like a bomb went off’ in Georgia: Helene “spared no one,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday. Among the 17 people who died in Georgia was a mother and her 1-month-old twin boys, a 7-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, and a 58-year-old man, according to Kemp. “It looks like a tornado went off; it looks like a bomb went off,” Kemp said.

    • South Carolina ‘devastated’ by Helene: The National Weather Service Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, said Saturday it is “devastated by the horrific flooding and widespread wind damage that was caused by Hurricane Helene.” The agency called it “the worst event in our office’s history,” in a Facebook post Saturday evening.

    Video above: People stranded on Tennessee hospital roof

    • ‘Complete obliteration’ along Florida coast: Days after Helene slammed Florida on Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane, countless residents are displaced, boil water notices are in place in multiple counties and power is out for over 243,000 customers. “You see some just complete obliteration for homes,” DeSantis said Saturday, noting Helene impacted some of the same communities affected by hurricanes Idalia and Debby. “That’s been an awful lot thrown at one community in just a 14, 15 month time period,” he said. Cleanup and recovery has started across the state, including indirectly hit Taylor County, where crews have cleared 90% of larger roads, the sheriff’s office said Saturday.

    • Additional rain expected: Helene became a post-tropical cyclone on Friday, but rainfall is expected to continue this weekend across parts of the southern Appalachian region. Additional totals of half an inch are expected for areas of western North Carolina, including Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Up to 2 inches is possible for portions of Virginia and West Virginia through Monday. “Additional rainfall is not expected to exacerbate ongoing flooding but may lead to excessive runoff due to saturated soils,” the weather service said Sunday morning.

    ‘We all really need help here’

    Since Helene started swamping the region, it’s turned neighborhoods into lakes, lifted cars like toys, snapped trees like twigs and left businesses underwater. Piles of thick mud and floating debris blocked streets as torrential rains collapsed roadways and washed out bridges. It’s left hundreds of people in North Carolina stranded in homes, hospitals or transportation systems, awaiting rescue.

    “The priority is getting people out,” North Carolina Gov. Cooper told CNN affiliate Spectrum News. “And getting supplies in.”

    But officials face a major hurdle: there’s a barrier: “Everything is flooded. It is very difficult for them to see exactly what the problems are,” Cooper said.

    As floodwaters inundated Asheville, North Carolina, Friday, residents in an apartment complex watched as units were submerged in water.

    Video above: Large boats pushed onto lawns in Treasure Island, Florida

    Stevie Hollander, a 26-year-old who lives on the second floor with his sister and her fiancé, told CNN, “the water almost reached us but thankfully went down.” Most of the residents in the first-floor units left before the water rushed in, but some relocated to units on higher floors to stay with other residents, Hollander said.

    “We all really need help here. We need water, power of sorts, food, gas. Anything.” he said, “We just don’t really know what to do.”

    Floodwaters left Hollander and his family stranded in the apartment. They attempted to drive north Saturday, but road closures made it impossible and they had to return to the apartment. The family only has four water bottles left and little nonperishable food, Hollander said.

    In Black Mountain, North Carolina, Sofia Grace Kunst contended with another problem – a landslide.

    Video above: Drone footage shows cars driving through flooded waters in Asheville, North Carolina

    Kunst, who was there on a weeklong trip, was playing the card game Uno with six of her friends in a small room within a dining hall. She remembers the exact time mud and debris shattered a window and poured into the room on Friday: 9:10 a.m. Someone yelled, “Landslide! Everybody run,” so they all did.

    “I see this giant wave of like mud and trees and rocks just coming towards us,” Kunst told CNN, estimating it was five or six feet high.

    From there, everything happened very quickly.

    She ran into the main room of the dining hall, only to see the wall completely cave in. They fled to the porch of the dining hall, where many of her peers were crying, and Kunst sat in shock, she said.

    At that point, she realized she was barefoot, and still had her Uno cards in hand.

    The group didn’t know where to go next because of water flowing on every side of them, but they ultimately decided to trek through muddy water to get to a parking lot on higher ground. After being stranded there for a while, they were able to get to a shelter,

    “That’s when it hit most people. There were a lot of tears. For me, it really didn’t hit me emotionally, but my body started reacting. I started shaking like crazy. I felt like I had to, like, scream or let off energy,” Kunst said.

    Deluge ‘wiped out’ North Carolina businesses before tourist season

    In the community of Asheville, small businesses were left in shambles just before October, its biggest tourist season of the year.

    As the day broke Saturday, business owner Patrick McNamara was able to take a first look at the destruction left in Helene’s wake. McNamara has run a small milk distribution business in Asheville for 12 years.

    “The floodwaters were four feet above the dock,” McNamara said, “So the entire building has been wiped out.”

    His business machinery was strewn across the warehouse, milk spoiled and inches of mud pilled all over the floor. McNamara estimates he’ll have to get rid of thousands of gallons of milk.

    McNamara, concerned about access to resources, said he may have to consider relocating the business to another facility.

    As he begins a lengthy cleanup process, McNamara is confident the community will be able to patch itself together and have a successful tourist season despite the devastation.

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  • At least 56 dead and millions without power after Helene’s deadly march across the Southeast

    At least 56 dead and millions without power after Helene’s deadly march across the Southeast

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    Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue Saturday, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 56 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and left millions without power.“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph.From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it “looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads.Video below: Drone footage shows cars driving through flooded waters in Asheville, North CarolinaThere 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 the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.“To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.Water flooded Janetta Barfield’s car there as a creek overflowed, reaching her lap, before a police officer rescued her.“It happened so fast to me and scared the life out of me because nothing like that ever happened,” said Barfield, a traveling nurse.While there have been deaths in the county, Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said he wasn’t ready to report specifics, partially because downed cell towers hindered efforts to contact next of kin.Relatives put out desperate pleas for help on Facebook. Among those waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, whose sister told her she was going to check on guests at a vacation cabin as the storm began hitting Asheville. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, hasn’t been able to reach her since then.“I think that people are just completely stuck,” 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 unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina, where Gov. Roy Cooper described it as “catastrophic” as search and rescue teams from 19 states and the federal government came to help. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.And in Atlanta, 11.12 inches of rain fell over 48 hours, the most the city has seen over two days since record keeping began in 1878.President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene’s devastation has been “overwhelming” and pledged to send help.Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for 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 U.S. 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.Video below: House floating away, collapsing in NC as Helene floods areaEvacuations began before the storm hit and continued as lakes overtopped dams, including one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.Elin Fisher and her husband, who teach whitewater standup paddleboarding on the Nolichucky River in Tennessee, had to move their camper three times to stay ahead of rising waters.And in Newport, Tennessee, Jonah Wark waited so long to evacuate that a boat had to come to the rescue. “Definitely a scary moment,” Wark said.Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.None of the victims were from Taylor County, which is where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity.Video below: Large boats pushed onto lawns in Treasure Island, Florida“If you had told me there was going to be 15 feet to 18 feet of storm surge, even with the best efforts, I would have assumed we would have had multiple fatalities,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday.Taylor County is in Florida’s Big Bend, where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up much of the state’s coastlines are largely absent.The county went years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Idalia and two other storms in a little over a year, the area is beginning to feel like a hurricane superhighway.“It’s bringing everybody to reality about what this is now with disasters,” said John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing town and weekend getaway.Timmy Futch, of the Big Bend community of Horseshoe Beach, stayed put for the hurricane, only driving to high ground when the water reached his house.“We watched our town get tore to pieces is what we done,” he said, noting that his grandfather helped found the town, where many homes have been reduced to piles of lumber.Video below: People stranded on Tennessee hospital roofAbout 60 miles to the north, cars lined up before sunrise Saturday at a free food distribution site in Perry, Florida, amid widespread power outages.“We’re making it one day at a time,” said Sierra Land, who lost everything in her fridge, as she arrived at the site with her 5- and 10-year-old sons and her grandmother.Thousands of utility crew workers descended upon Florida in advance of the hurricane, and by Saturday power was restored to more than 1.9 million homes and businesses. But hundreds of thousands remain without electricity there and in Georgia.Chris Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, said crews were focused on opening routes to hospitals and making sure supplies can be delivered to damaged communities.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 record-warm ocean temperatures.___Payne reported from Perry, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed.

    PERRY, Fla. —

    Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue Saturday, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 56 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and left millions without power.

    “I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.

    Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph.

    From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it “looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

    Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads.

    Video below: Drone footage shows cars driving through flooded waters in Asheville, North Carolina

    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 the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.

    “To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.

    Water flooded Janetta Barfield’s car there as a creek overflowed, reaching her lap, before a police officer rescued her.

    “It happened so fast to me and scared the life out of me because nothing like that ever happened,” said Barfield, a traveling nurse.

    While there have been deaths in the county, Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said he wasn’t ready to report specifics, partially because downed cell towers hindered efforts to contact next of kin.

    Relatives put out desperate pleas for help on Facebook. Among those waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, whose sister told her she was going to check on guests at a vacation cabin as the storm began hitting Asheville. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, hasn’t been able to reach her since then.

    “I think that people are just completely stuck,” 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 unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina, where Gov. Roy Cooper described it as “catastrophic” as search and rescue teams from 19 states and the federal government came to help. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.

    And in Atlanta, 11.12 inches of rain fell over 48 hours, the most the city has seen over two days since record keeping began in 1878.

    President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene’s devastation has been “overwhelming” and pledged to send help.

    Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for 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 U.S. 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.

    Video below: House floating away, collapsing in NC as Helene floods area

    Evacuations began before the storm hit and continued as lakes overtopped dams, including one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.

    Elin Fisher and her husband, who teach whitewater standup paddleboarding on the Nolichucky River in Tennessee, had to move their camper three times to stay ahead of rising waters.

    And in Newport, Tennessee, Jonah Wark waited so long to evacuate that a boat had to come to the rescue. “Definitely a scary moment,” Wark said.

    Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

    None of the victims were from Taylor County, which is where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity.

    Video below: Large boats pushed onto lawns in Treasure Island, Florida

    “If you had told me there was going to be 15 feet to 18 feet of storm surge, even with the best efforts, I would have assumed we would have had multiple fatalities,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday.

    Taylor County is in Florida’s Big Bend, where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up much of the state’s coastlines are largely absent.

    The county went years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Idalia and two other storms in a little over a year, the area is beginning to feel like a hurricane superhighway.

    “It’s bringing everybody to reality about what this is now with disasters,” said John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing town and weekend getaway.

    Timmy Futch, of the Big Bend community of Horseshoe Beach, stayed put for the hurricane, only driving to high ground when the water reached his house.

    “We watched our town get tore to pieces is what we done,” he said, noting that his grandfather helped found the town, where many homes have been reduced to piles of lumber.

    Video below: People stranded on Tennessee hospital roof

    About 60 miles to the north, cars lined up before sunrise Saturday at a free food distribution site in Perry, Florida, amid widespread power outages.

    “We’re making it one day at a time,” said Sierra Land, who lost everything in her fridge, as she arrived at the site with her 5- and 10-year-old sons and her grandmother.

    Thousands of utility crew workers descended upon Florida in advance of the hurricane, and by Saturday power was restored to more than 1.9 million homes and businesses. But hundreds of thousands remain without electricity there and in Georgia.

    Chris Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, said crews were focused on opening routes to hospitals and making sure supplies can be delivered to damaged communities.

    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 record-warm ocean temperatures.

    ___

    Payne reported from Perry, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed.

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

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

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    Hurricane Helene caused at least 52 deaths and billions of dollars of destruction across a wide swath of the southeastern U.S. as it raced through, and more than 3 million customers went into the weekend without any power and for some a continued threat of floods.Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday packing winds of 140 mph and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks 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. Video shows sections of Asheville underwater.Francine Cavanaugh said she has been totally unable to reach her sister, son, or friends in the Asheville area.“My sister checked in with me yesterday morning to find out how I was in Atlanta,” she said on Saturday. “The storm was just hitting her in Asheville, and she said it sounded really scary outside.”Video below: Drone footage shows cars driving through flooded waters in Asheville, North CarolinaCavanaugh said her sister had no idea how bad the storm would be there. She told Cavanaugh she was going to head out to check on guests at a vacation cabin “and that’s the last I heard of her. I’ve been texting everyone that I know with no response. All phone calls go directly to voicemail.”She saw video of a grocery store near the cabins that was completely flooded.“I think that people are just completely stuck, wherever they are, with no cell service, no electricity.”There were 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 the roof of a hospital that was surrounded by water from a flooded river.The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. Several flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect in parts of the southern and central Appalachians, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.At least 48 people have been killed in the storm; among them were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.In the wealthy enclave of Davis Islands in Tampa, where star athletes like Derek Jeter and Tom Brady have lived, residents were continuing to clean up Saturday from storm surge left by Helene.The neighborhoods that sit just off Tampa’s downtown and are home to about 5,000 people had never seen storm surge like it had Friday. No one died, but homes, businesses and apartments were flooded.”I don’t think anybody was expecting it,” Faith Pilafas told the Tampa Bay Times. “We’ve kind of gotten accustomed to lots of talk about big storms, and never actually like feeling the effects of it. So for all the people who didn’t leave the island, I feel like they were all just expecting it to be a normal storm, anticlimactic. And wow, were we surprised.”Evacuations and record rainfallAuthorities warned residents to evacuate, and many did, but some stayed behind.In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed.Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people.Atlanta received a record 11.12 inches of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878, Georgia’s Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. Some neighborhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water.Video below: House floating away, collapsing in NC as Helene floods areaMoody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.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.Big Bend region hit hardFlorida’s Big Bend is a part of the state where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up so much of the state’s coastlines are largely absent.It’s a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her 4-year-old Chihuahua mix Lucy could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on her salary as a housekeeper.At least, until her house was carried away by Helene.Video below: Large boats pushed onto lawns in Treasure Island, FloridaFriday afternoon, Hartway wandered around her street near Ezell Beach, searching for where the storm may have deposited her home.“It’s gone. I don’t know where it’s at. I can’t find it,” she said of her house.The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023.All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising water. He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas.More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who died when trees struck their trucks. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin reported at least one death in his state.Power loss and infrastructure damagePresident Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late Friday morning.Officials urged people who were trapped to call for rescuers and not tread floodwaters, warning they can be dangerous due to live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.Video below: People stranded on Tennessee hospital roofIn Georgia, an electrical utility group warned of “catastrophic” damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of customers were without power, said crews had to cut their way through debris just to determine what was still standing in some places.The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August.The destruction extended far beyond Florida.Historic flooding expectedA mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out part of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line.Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday.“This is something that we’re going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come,” Cole said.Forecasters warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help.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 record-warm ocean temperatures.___Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed.

    PERRY, Fla. —

    Hurricane Helene caused at least 52 deaths and billions of dollars of destruction across a wide swath of the southeastern U.S. as it raced through, and more than 3 million customers went into the weekend without any power and for some a continued threat of floods.

    Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday packing winds of 140 mph and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks 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. Video shows sections of Asheville underwater.

    Francine Cavanaugh said she has been totally unable to reach her sister, son, or friends in the Asheville area.

    “My sister checked in with me yesterday morning to find out how I was in Atlanta,” she said on Saturday. “The storm was just hitting her in Asheville, and she said it sounded really scary outside.”

    Video below: Drone footage shows cars driving through flooded waters in Asheville, North Carolina

    Cavanaugh said her sister had no idea how bad the storm would be there. She told Cavanaugh she was going to head out to check on guests at a vacation cabin “and that’s the last I heard of her. I’ve been texting everyone that I know with no response. All phone calls go directly to voicemail.”

    She saw video of a grocery store near the cabins that was completely flooded.

    “I think that people are just completely stuck, wherever they are, with no cell service, no electricity.”

    There were 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 the roof of a hospital that was surrounded by water from a flooded river.

    The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. Several flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect in parts of the southern and central Appalachians, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.

    At least 48 people have been killed in the storm; among them were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

    In the wealthy enclave of Davis Islands in Tampa, where star athletes like Derek Jeter and Tom Brady have lived, residents were continuing to clean up Saturday from storm surge left by Helene.

    The neighborhoods that sit just off Tampa’s downtown and are home to about 5,000 people had never seen storm surge like it had Friday. No one died, but homes, businesses and apartments were flooded.

    ”I don’t think anybody was expecting it,” Faith Pilafas told the Tampa Bay Times. “We’ve kind of gotten accustomed to lots of talk about big storms, and never actually like feeling the effects of it. So for all the people who didn’t leave the island, I feel like they were all just expecting it to be a normal storm, anticlimactic. And wow, were we surprised.”

    Evacuations and record rainfall

    Authorities warned residents to evacuate, and many did, but some stayed behind.

    In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed.

    Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people.

    Atlanta received a record 11.12 inches of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878, Georgia’s Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. Some neighborhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water.

    Video below: House floating away, collapsing in NC as Helene floods area

    Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.

    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.

    Big Bend region hit hard

    Florida’s Big Bend is a part of the state where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up so much of the state’s coastlines are largely absent.

    It’s a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her 4-year-old Chihuahua mix Lucy could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on her salary as a housekeeper.

    At least, until her house was carried away by Helene.

    Video below: Large boats pushed onto lawns in Treasure Island, Florida

    Friday afternoon, Hartway wandered around her street near Ezell Beach, searching for where the storm may have deposited her home.

    “It’s gone. I don’t know where it’s at. I can’t find it,” she said of her house.

    The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023.

    All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising water. He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas.

    More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who died when trees struck their trucks. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin reported at least one death in his state.

    Power loss and infrastructure damage

    President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late Friday morning.

    Officials urged people who were trapped to call for rescuers and not tread floodwaters, warning they can be dangerous due to live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.

    Video below: People stranded on Tennessee hospital roof

    In Georgia, an electrical utility group warned of “catastrophic” damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of customers were without power, said crews had to cut their way through debris just to determine what was still standing in some places.

    The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August.

    The destruction extended far beyond Florida.

    Historic flooding expected

    A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out part of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line.

    Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday.

    “This is something that we’re going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come,” Cole said.

    Forecasters warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help.

    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 record-warm ocean temperatures.

    ___

    Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed.

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  • Hurricane Helene kills at least 44 and cuts a swath of destruction across the Southeast

    Hurricane Helene kills at least 44 and cuts a swath of destruction across the Southeast

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    The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 40 across four states. Helene has left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S.

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  • Central Florida under tornado watch, tropical storm warning as Helene nears

    Central Florida under tornado watch, tropical storm warning as Helene nears

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    click to enlarge

    Image via National Weather Service

    As Category 2 Hurricane Helene continues its path up the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida’s Big Bend region, much of Central Florida has been placed under both a tropical storm warning and a tornado watch.

    Effective in Orange, Seminole, Lake, Volusia, Brevard, Osceola, Indian River, Okeechobee, St. Lucie and Martin counties, a tornado watch is in effect until 8 p.m. Thursday. The area can expect wind gusts up to 50 to 60 mph and possibly deadly lightning.

    All of east central Florida remains under a tropical storm warning, with tropical-storm-force winds expected Thursday afternoon into the night. Preparations should be fully complete, according to the National Weather Service Melbourne.

    Helene’s outer bands have begun to reach the Sunshine State, with tropical-storm-force winds extending up to 345 miles from its center, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 11 a.m. update. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 110 mph with higher gusts.

    As of 11 a.m., Helene was about 195 miles southwest of Tampa and about 230 miles south of Apalachicola. Maximum sustained winds hit 110 mph and the system is moving at about 16 mph.

    Helene is expected to remain on its projected path of a Thursday evening landfall in the Big Bend region.

    At least 22 Florida counties have been placed under partial or total mandatory evacuation orders. All residents of Franklin, Taylor and Wakullla counties, all in the Big Bend, have been ordered to evacuate.

    Gov. DeSantis and Florida officials warned residents time is running out to make preparations for the large, fast-moving and potentially life-threatening system.

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    Chloe Greenberg

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