Hurricane Helene killed at least 22 people and left millions without power in the Southeast before weakening on its way north Friday morning, officials said.
Widespread damage was expected in Florida’s Big Bend region, where Helene made landfall as a Category 4 shortly after 11 p.m. ET on Thursday. It was the strongest storm to ever hit the area connecting the Florida Panhandle and Peninsula.
On Friday morning, Florida residents woke up to extensive damage from devastating flooding, high winds and heavy rain.
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Water levels in some parts of the region reached more than 15 feet above ground level, the National Hurricane Center said, citing preliminary storm surge models.
In Perry, Florida, where officials urged residents who refused to evacuate to write their information on their bodies for identification, Police Chief Jamie Cruse braced for the storm’s aftermath as first responders began rescue operations.
“We’re starting to get our first glimpse of what we actually have on the ground and what we’re going to have to deal with,” he told NBC News. “My only regret at this point is that we were not aggressive enough in reporting to tell people to evacuate the flood-prone areas.”
“I just hope that when we finally find out what we’re dealing with, we don’t have to suffer a major loss of life,” he added.
Officials in Clearwater, further south along Florida’s Gulf Coast, also feared the worst after seeing nighttime images of first responders rescuing elderly local residents in knee-deep floodwaters.
“A number of houses on the island have burned to the ground. There were a number of people that we just couldn’t reach to rescue because of the high water,” Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector told NBC’s TODAY show.
The storm is blamed for at least 11 deaths in Georgia, including a first responder, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said at a news conference. “One of our best people lost his life trying to save others,” he said.
Five deaths were reported in Pinellas County, Florida overnight, officials said. The sheriff’s office said two of the deaths appear to be the result of drowning.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters that one person died in Dixie County after a tree fell on a house. Another fatality occurred after a traffic sign fell on a car.
In North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper said there were two storm-related deaths. A four-year-old child was killed in a car crash during heavy rain in Catawba County just after 8 a.m. ET, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol said.
Three other children who were in the cars were hospitalized: a 12-year-old with life-threatening injuries, a 2-year-old with life-threatening injuries and a 4-year-old with non-life-threatening injuries.
Another person died in Charlotte after a tree fell on the house.
Trees felled by the hurricane caused two deaths in Anderson County, South Carolina, officials said.
Meanwhile, more than 4.3 million people are experiencing power outages in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility data.
Florida Power & Light Company said it has restored power to at least 460,000 customers as of 6 a.m., which is more than 65% of the total number of affected customers.
A spokesperson said the company does not know how long it might take to restore power to the remaining 214,000 people still in the dark until crews can safely inspect the damage.
Duke Energy Florida said power had been restored to nearly 198,000 customers, while more than 402,000 were still experiencing outages. Workers will have to wait for flooding to subside in some of the hardest-hit areas, but a full recovery was expected within days, Duke Energy spokesperson Ana Gibbs said.
“It won’t take weeks,” she said.
Now that Helene is a tropical storm, it is expected to bring damaging winds and catastrophic flooding as it moves north through the Southeast, according to the National Hurricane Center. The agency said people living in the southern Appalachians should brace for possible long-term power outages.
There is a flash flood in the Atlanta metropolitan area, officials said. Twelve million people are at risk from tropical tornadoes in eastern Carolina and southern Virginia, including the cities of Charleston, Wilmington, Charlotte, Raleigh and Norfolk.
At 11 a.m., the storm was located 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Bryson City, North Carolina, and was moving northward with maximum sustained winds of 45 miles (72 km) per hour.
President Joe Biden approved emergency declaration requests, allowing federal aid to Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina, and ordered more than 1,500 federal personnel deployed to the region.
Federal Emergency Management Administrator Deanne Criswell is expected to travel to Florida to survey the damage and meet with state and local officials.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
