He hurricane Helene left dozens dead and billions of dollars in damage as it passed through a wide area of the southeastern United States, and more than three million customers remained without power while others residents The threat of flooding persisted.
He meteor made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida on Thursday night as a hurricane Category 4, with winds of 225 kilometers per hour (140 miles per hour), and moved rapidly through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, damaging homes, overflowing rivers and streams and overloading roads. dams.
Rescues and floods
Western North Carolina was left practically cut off due to landslides and floods that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other highways.
There were hundreds of water rescues, but none more dramatic than the one in rural Unicoi County in eastern Mexico. Tennesseewhere dozens of patients and workers were taken by helicopter from the roof of a hospital surrounded by the water of an overflowing river.
The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, is expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, agreement with the National Center for Hurricanes.
They kept active some flood alerts in areas of the southern and central Appalachians, as well as strong warnings winds for areas of Tennessee and Ohio.
Victims of Helene
Among the at least 44 deaths due to the storm There were three firefighters, a woman and her one-month-old twins and a women 89-year-old whose house was hit by a falling tree.
According to a count by The Associated Press, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
In North Carolina, a lake that appears in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although it was not feared that could give way.
Newport, a city in around of 7,000 inhabitants in Tennessee, due to the concern that a prey nearby, although authorities later said the structure was not faulty.
Furthermore, it registered tornadoes in some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, which injured four serious.
In Atlanta, 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain fell in 48 hours, a record for that period since the events began. records in 1878, according to the Georgia State Meteorologist’s Office on the X social network. Some Neighborhoods suffered flooding so severe that the roofs of cars were barely sticking out of the water.
Moody’s Analytics predicts that material damage ascend to between 15,000 and 26,000 million dollars.
Climate change has worsened the conditions that aggravate this type of storms, which quickly gain intensity in waters hotter and become powerful hurricanes sometimes within hours.
The president of the country, Joe Bidensaid he was praying for the survivors and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Emergencies (FEMAfor its acronym in English) headed to the affected area.
The FEMA mobilized more than 1,500 workers, and as of late Friday morning they had helped 400 rescues.
The authorities asked the population trapped that you notify the emergency teams and do not venture to move on your own due to the possibility that there are live electrical cables, waters in the water. residualsharp objects and other debris.
In Georgia, an electric company warned of “catastrophic” damage to public infrastructure, with more than 100 lines high strain damaged.
And officials in South Carolina, where More than 40% of the customers who were left without service said that in some places Workers had to pick their way through the rubble just to determine what was left standing.
He hurricane touched land near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 30 km (20 miles) northwest of where Idalia did last year, which had almost the same power.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis noted that the damage caused by Helene They seemed to be older than those they lefttogether, Idalia and the hurricane Debby in August.
Helene It is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Administration Office Oceanic and Atmospheric predicted that this season will be above average due to record ocean temperatures.
