Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big bend region as a powerful Category 4 storm, knocked power out for millions of people across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and more.
The storm made landfall in Florida late a Thursday night, but the impacts have spread far beyond, as the storm was extremely large.
“When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we’re going to be waking up to a state where very likely there’s been additional loss of life and certainly there’s going to be loss of property,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday night.
Indeed, there have been at least two deaths in Florida connected to Hurricane Helene, three in Georgia, and one in North Carolina.
“We did report that there was a traffic fatality last night,” DeSantis said Friday morning. “We also this morning, can report that there’s been another fatality reported in Dixie County, due to a tree falling on the home during the storm overnight.”
Damage has been widespread, and over 3 million people, as of the writing of this post, are without power across the southeastern portion of the United States. According to poweroutage.us, 1,073,793 customers are without power in Florida, while South Carolina sees 1,375,032 without power, and Georgia sees 1,063,766 without power.
Another 640,000, roughly, are without power in North Carolina, and over 66,000 are without power in Tennessee. Even Virginia is reporting over 63,000 without power as well.
“In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene hundreds of search and rescue missions were conducted by state personnel, and the state assisted on nearly a thousand others,” DeSantis said early Friday morning.
Boats Washed Ashore! Hurricane Helene Aftermath on Treasure Island, Florida
Treasure Island, FL /TMXWhile he said that it is true that over one million are without power in the state, one million more have already been restored.
“There are over a million accounts without power in the state, but over a million have already been restored thanks to resources staged ahead of the storm,” he revealed.
“Cut and toss operations have been underway by 61 FDOT crews since 3 a.m. Over 2,000 miles of roadway have been cleared, and these operations continue,” he added.
In his morning press conference, DeSantis said, “Overnight, as soon as the storm, as soon as it was safe to do, and even in many cases, probably wasn’t perfectly safe to do, search and rescue operations were conducted to help people that were in distress and transport them to safety.”
“These missions continue, but we’ve had thousands of missions successfully completed in the overnight hours throughout the state,” he added.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded Helene to a tropical storm early Friday morning.
