Helene’s death toll at least 20 as Georgia first responder killed
Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp says a first responder is among at least 11 people killed in his state, lifting Hurricane Helene’s death toll across the south-eastern US to above 20.
“It is a very dangerous environment, and one of our finest has lost his life trying to save others,” Kemp said a late-morning media briefing.
“We’ve had 11 confirmed fatalities. I would ask all Georgians, like the Kemp family is doing, to keep these folks in these communities in your thoughts and prayers.”
Kemp said emergency crews were “having a hard time getting to places” because of storm damage, and urged residents to be patient.
“We got to get our chainsaw cut teams to continue working to free up roads, but we’ll have those resources moving as soon as it’s safe to do so,” he said, adding that authorities were scanning the state by air to identify the worst hit places.
Overall, Helene has claimed the lives of at least 20 people, according to a Guardian tally. Seven of the reported fatalities are in Florida, with others in North and South Carolina. Several of the deaths are attributed to trees falling on buildings.
Key events
The National Hurricane Center just released its latest public advisory, saying that Helene, now a tropical depression, is “still producing historic and catastrophic flooding over portions of the southeast and southern Appalachians.
At 2 pm ET, the center of the tropical depression was over the Tennessee and Kentucky border, about 125 miles (205 km) south-east of Louisville, Kentucky. Maximum winds have decreased to 35 mph (55km).
“A slowdown in forward speed is expected, and the depression is forecast to stall over the Tennessee Valley tonight and through the weekend,” the advisory said, with further weakening later in the day.
Helene downgraded to a tropical depression
The National Hurricane Center’s 2pm ET advisory has further downgraded Helene to a tropical depression. But it warns the storm is still producing “historic and catastrophic flooding” across multiple states.
Helene came ashore as a category 4 hurricane in Florida on Thursday night, and quickly weakened into a tropical storm as it moved north across Georgia and the Carolinas on Friday morning.
At least 20 deaths have been blamed on the storm.
A silver lining, if there can be one from the deadliest and most powerful cyclone to strike the US in more than a year, is that Hurricane Helene is unlikely to be among the country’s costliest, in insurance terms at least.
A report in the Miami Herald on Friday says insurance industry leaders believe losses will be “modest”, largely because the storm’s initial landfall came in a sparsely populated area of Florida.
“This looks like it will not be a large loss event for Florida insurers,” Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the industry-backed Insurance Information Institute, told the newspaper.
The report says Helene’s losses could be closer to hurricanes Idalia ($309m) and Debby ($128m), two other cyclones that struck the state’s Big Bend area since August last year.
The costliest hurricane in US history was Katrina in 2005, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The storm that flooded New Orleans cost insurers more than $200bn.
Interim summary
It’s lunchtime in the south-eastern US, where Tropical Storm Helene, once a monster category 4 hurricane with 140mph winds, is still menacing states from Florida to Ohio. Here’s what we’ve been following:
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At least 20 people have been killed by the storm, which made landfall at about 11.10pm Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend. It picked up significant strength in the Gulf of Mexico, and has left a trail of devastation during its rampage across numerous states.
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Many of the fatalities are in Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp told reporters that a first responder was among 11 confirmed deaths. Dozens of people were rescued as severe flooding affected many areas, including the city of Atlanta, which remains under a flash flood warning.
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In Florida, five people were killed in Pinellas county, at least two of them drowned after they ignored warnings to evacuate, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. At least two others are dead in Florida, one in a traffic accident and the other when a tree fell on a house, Governor Ron DeSantis said. He credited rescue crews with saving “a lot of lives” during thousands of overnight rescues.
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North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, said Helene was “one of the worst storms in modern history”, and warned the end of the rain was not the end of the threat to his state because of flooding and high wind concerns. At least two people were killed.
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The National Weather Service issued an emergency evacuation order for residents below North Carolina’s Lake Lure dam, which it said was at risk of “imminent failure” after it was overtopped by storm water.
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The National Hurricane Center (NHC), in its most recent advisory, warned of “historic, catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding” across the south-eastern US continuing into the weekend. Damaging wind gusts could be expected in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky on Friday, and “significant flooding” over Ohio and the Tennessee valleys through at least Sunday.
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Early estimates from the NHC’s storm surge unit indicates water levels reached more than 15ft above normal where the storm came ashore near Keaton Beach, Florida. The figure is below the worst prediction of more than 20ft, but is still abnormally high, and the storm’s giant size left flooding far from its core.
Stick with us for all the afternoon developments.
A preliminary assessment of Hurricane Helene’s storm surge in Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center, indicates water levels reached more than 15ft above normal where the storm came ashore near Keaton Beach.
The NHC’s storm surge unit says it will be conducting a detailed analysis in the coming weeks. If confirmed, the figure is about 5ft below the worst predictions for Helene’s storm surge, which officials feared would be 20ft or more.
Preliminary post-landfall modeling of storm surge from Hurricane #Helene indicates areas within the Big Bend region of Florida near Keaton Beach, Steinhatchee, and Horseshoe Beach had water levels reach more than 15 ft above ground level.
— NHC Storm Surge (@NHC_Surge) September 27, 2024
Even so, a surge of 15ft at landfall, and 10ft or more in areas such as Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, Florida, which were much further away from Helene’s eye, is still abnormally high.
For example, the storm surge from category 5 Hurricane Michael, which struck Florida’s Big Bend in October 2018, was only 14ft, but water levels topped above 20ft when the surge combined with waves in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a storm tide sensor near Mexico Beach.
While Helene was downgraded to a tropical storm on Friday morning, another hurricane, Isaac, was forming in the Atlantic.
Although it poses no threat to land, Isaac’s formation means there are three named active storms in the Atlantic basin for the first time since August of last year, according to meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.
Tropical Storm Joyce, currently churning in mid-Atlantic, is not expected to become a hurricane and, like Isaac, poses no threat to land.
August and September are the statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on 1 June and runs until 30 November.
Helene’s death toll at least 20 as Georgia first responder killed
Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp says a first responder is among at least 11 people killed in his state, lifting Hurricane Helene’s death toll across the south-eastern US to above 20.
“It is a very dangerous environment, and one of our finest has lost his life trying to save others,” Kemp said a late-morning media briefing.
“We’ve had 11 confirmed fatalities. I would ask all Georgians, like the Kemp family is doing, to keep these folks in these communities in your thoughts and prayers.”
Kemp said emergency crews were “having a hard time getting to places” because of storm damage, and urged residents to be patient.
“We got to get our chainsaw cut teams to continue working to free up roads, but we’ll have those resources moving as soon as it’s safe to do so,” he said, adding that authorities were scanning the state by air to identify the worst hit places.
Overall, Helene has claimed the lives of at least 20 people, according to a Guardian tally. Seven of the reported fatalities are in Florida, with others in North and South Carolina. Several of the deaths are attributed to trees falling on buildings.
The National Weather Service (NWS) is warning residents near North Carolina’s Lake Lure dam to evacuate immediately because of its “imminent failure”.
The dam, at a hydro-electric plant in Rutherford county, is already overtopping with an excess of water from Hurricane Helene, threatening the safety and effective operation of the dam and hydro plant, according to its website.
Lake Lure, a popular spot for water-based recreation, covers 720 acres and holds billions of gallons.
The evacuation order came in an emergency alert posted by the NWS to X. “Dam failure imminent! Residents below the dam need to evacuate to higher ground immediately,” it said in the all-caps message.
Five reported dead in Florida’s Pinellas county
The sheriff of Florida’s Pinellas county, Bob Gualtieri, said at least five people were killed in separate locations at the height of the storm. He said a storm surge of more than 8ft left parts of the county looking like “a war zone”.
“Not everybody evacuated, and unfortunately, they called for help, and we couldn’t help a lot of the people who called as those conditions got very bad last night, and it was inaccessible,” he told reporters at a morning briefing, reported by CNN.
“We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high water vehicles, and we just got with too many obstacles, and we couldn’t get out there and effect some of those rescues.”
At least two of the deaths were drownings, Gualtieri said, but all five were attributable to the storm. He said it was possible the county’s death toll would rise as deputies went house to house.
“I can’t think of a time ever that Pinellas county has experienced the surge that we experienced last night and into the early morning,” he said.
North Carolina governor: Helene ‘one of worst storms in modern history’
We’ve just heard an update from Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s governor, about the ongoing impact of Tropical Storm Helene. He says the storm is “one of the worst in modern history”.
Two people are confirmed dead in his state, he said in a video briefing to reporters. Heavy rain, flash flooding and downed trees blocking roads continue to hamper rescue and recovery efforts, while almost 900,000 customers in the state are without power:
This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina. The end of the rain is not the end of the threat. This fierce storm will move out of our state in the next 24 hours, but the danger will not be over.
Tropical storm force winds that border on hurricane strength are happening right now. Across western North Carolina, trees are falling, causing widespread power outages.
Our hearts are heavy as we report two deaths, one in Catawba County due to a motor vehicle collision on a flooded roadway, and one in Charlotte due to a tree falling on home. There will be more.
