Helene brings chaos to Florida, Georgia; over 2 million without power

FLORIDA – Helene roared through Florida and Georgia under darkness on Sept 27 as

one of the most powerful storms

to hit the United States, killing at least one person, swamping neighbourhoods, and leaving more than two million homes and businesses without power.

The Category 4 storm hit land around midnight, leaving a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbours, felled trees, stranded cars and flooded streets, according to images from Tampa, Naples and St Petersburg on Florida’s coast.

“When we wake up tomorrow morning, the chances are there will likely have been more fatalities,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, confirming the death of a driver whose car was struck by debris.

More than 1.2 million electricity customers in Florida and 800,000 in Georgia suffered power outages, companies said.

Helene is the joint 14th most powerful hurricane to hit in the US since records began, and the seventh most powerful in Florida, according to the National Hurricane Centre (NHC).

Having reached Florida with 225kmh winds, it weakened to 110kmh after heading north across Georgia. Up to 50cm of rain was forecast in some places.

Helene weakens

As dawn broke, the NHC said Helene had calmed from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

“Continued weakening is expected, and Helene is expected to become a post-tropical low this afternoon or tonight,” it added.

However, life-threatening storm surges, winds and heavy rains continued, the NHC said.

“A really unsurvivable scenario is going to play out” in the coastal area, NHC director Michael Brennan said, with water capable of destroying buildings and carrying cars.

In Taylor County, the Sheriff’s Department wrote on social media that residents who decided not to evacuate should write their names and dates of birth on their arms in permanent ink “so that you can be identified and family notified”.

Some residents were staying stubbornly put.

“We’re under orders, but I’m going to stay right here at the house,” state ferry boat operator Ken Wood, 58, told Reuters from coastal Dunedin in Florida, where he planned to ride out the storm with his 16-year-old cat Andy.

Severe impact

Officials in low-lying Pinellas County, which sits on a peninsula surrounded by Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, warned the storm’s impact could be as severe as Hurricane Idalia in 2023, which flooded 1,500 homes. Videos showed swamped beachside roads and water rising over boat docks.

Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and St Petersburg all suspended operations on Sept 26.

Rain was whipping parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Georgia’s cotton and pecan crops were vulnerable in the middle of harvesting season.

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re said preliminary private insurance losses could reach US$3 billion (S$3.85 billion) to US$6 billion, with additional losses to federal insurance programs approaching a potential US$1 billion.

Energy facilities along the US Gulf Coast scaled back operations and evacuated some production sites.

The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Ms Deanne Criswell, said at a White House briefing that she would travel to Florida on Sept 27 to assess the damage.

Storm surge was forecast to reach 4.6m to 6.1m in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Panhandle region where the storm came ashore.

Helene was expected to dump up to 38.1cm of rain in some isolated spots after making landfall in Florida, causing considerable flash and urban flooding, the hurricane centre said.

“You need to prepare for prolonged (energy) outages. Those trees are going to come down in strong winds, block roads,” National Hurricane Centre deputy director Jamie Rhome said. REUTERS