‘Helen’who entered Thursday evening as a powerful category 4 hurricane along the northwest coast of Florida, has so far claimed 41 lives, a number that could still rise, and is leaving a path of destruction throughout the southeastern United States.
The cyclone caused the deaths of seven people in Florida, 15 in Georgia and 17 others in South Carolina, including two firefighters, as confirmed Friday by the governor of this state, Henry McMaster. In North Carolina, two deaths have been confirmed so far, including one a child under four years old.
As of Friday afternoon, more than 4.6 million people were without power in a dozen states as thousands of workers cleared debris, brush and repaired power lines in an effort to restore electricity.
Nearly a thousand flights have been canceled in the United States, the vast majority of them with scheduled departures or arrivals at the international airports of Charlotte (North Carolina), Atlanta (Georgia) and Tampa (Florida). .
At the first light of dawn, residents of Florida towns like Cedar Key and Perry, the latter where the hurricane made landfall, discovered before them a Dantesque picture of flooded streets, debris, windows and roofs torn off.
Some towns in this region, like Steinhatchee, a small fishing town still recovering from the onslaught of Hurricane “Idalia” in August of last year, saw how some homes and businesses were destroyed due to falling trees or strong winds.
The hurricane made landfall shortly after 11:00 p.m. Thursday evening local time (03:00 GMT Friday) near the town of Perry, in the northwest Florida region known as the Big Bend, with maximum sustained winds 225 kilometers per hour. hour (140 miles).
Flooding from rains and storm surges, which raised sea levels more than 3 meters above average, was extensive, with damage generally reaching hundreds of kilometers to the north.
‘Hélène’, this afternoon weakened into a post-tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 55 kilometers per hour (35 miles), still produces flooding and emergencies, as happened at a hospital in Tennessee, where 54 people had to be rescued by helicopter from the roof of the flooded health center.
In the southern state, around 20,000 residents were issued a mandatory evacuation order due to flash floods and the danger posed by a dam near the town of Newport.
In North Carolina, its governor, Roy Cooper, warned of the risks of dangers landslides due to torrential rain. “This is one of the worst storms in modern history in parts of western North Carolina,” he noted.
In the western localities of this State, a curfew from Friday eveningto facilitate the tasks of emergency teams, according to local authorities.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said today that several hospitals in the southern part of the state have lost power and that rescue teams are heading east, where dozens of residents are stuck in their homes at first hours of the day.
The federal emergency agency (FEMA) deployed up to 1,500 first responders to the disaster area, who participated in some 400 relief efforts in the Tampa area, in west Florida, in addition to distributing water and food.
The White House stressed today that both United States President Joe Biden and Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are “closely following these efforts and receiving regular briefings.”
