Tangled piles of nail-pierced lumber and displaced boats littered the streets. A house lay crushed under a fern-covered oak tree that had been toppled by the wind. Residents waded or paddled through the ruddy waters, hoping to find their loved ones safe, and rescue crews used fan boats to evacuate stranded people in bathrobes or wrapped in blankets.
Authorities tried to get a handle on the situation on Friday Hurricane Helene ‘s extreme swathe of destruction stretched across Florida, Georgia and much of the southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 30 people in four states and leaving millions without power.
Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year due to record warm ocean temperatures.
The Category 4 hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour and came ashore late Thursday where Florida’s Panhandle meets the Peninsula, a rural region of fishing villages and resorts.
Floods inundated cars and buildings, and winds tore the roofs off businesses, homes and churches. Faith Cotto and her mother, Nancy, stood outside and mourned the loss of their brick home in St. Petersburg, Florida, which met a different fate: Amid so much water, it burned down.
A Coast Guard crew in a helicopter rescued a man and his dog after his sailboat malfunctioned 25 miles off the coast of Southwest Florida. Firefighters carried children across floodwaters in Crystal River, north of Tampa.
But the damage went much further. In Atlanta, the streets plunged into reddish-brown water on Friday. Hospitals in South Georgia were left without electricity as officials warned of serious damage to the power grid. In Tennessee, dozens of people were rescued from the roof of a hospital, and authorities ordered the evacuation of downtown Newport, a city of about 7,000, due to the “catastrophic failure” of a dam.
