Helene's destructive legacy

Helene fiercest weather is history, but its legacy will be devastating coastal damage, widespread power outages and feet of rain producing destructive flooding.  

Helene will bring more rain to Ohio Valley today and Sunday. Here is the latest update:

Here is a rundown of what we know so far about Helene’s effects:

Coastal surge and damage

The National Hurricane Center’s Storm Surge Unit estimates a storm surge of at least 15 feet occurred in the Big Bend area of Florida during Helene’s Thursday night landfall. Hardest hit was Keaton Beach, Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach.

This drone footage shows the devastation in Steinhatchee, Fla.:

Rainfall and devastating flooding

As Helene moved inland, it spread a tropical deluge across Georgia, South Carolina and the mountains of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia.

More than a foot of rain fell across the southern Appalachians with several stations in North Carolina reporting more than 2 feet of rainfall, all within less than 24 hours.

This deluge overtaxed rivers and flood controls, causing rapid rises in rivers to near or record flood stage. Several dam emergencies were issued with fear of failure as flood gates were opened wide.

Major flooding knocked out bridges, roads and forced massive evacuations, including a Tennessee hospital where patients and staff had to be rescued from the roof.

Damage and deaths

No official estimates have been released showing the scope of the damages, but previous storms like Helene produced damages in the billions to tens of billions of dollars. It will likely take days and weeks before official estimates are made due to various type of destruction to coastal and inland areas.

More than 4.3M power outages were reported on Friday. Saturday morning outages still exceeded 3M from Florida to Ohio. South Carolina still has more than 1M customers without power.

At least 43 deaths have been attributed to Helene. Several of the deaths were due to trees falling on homes while several first responders reportedly died in South Carolina and Florida.