By Axios | Created at 2024-09-30 00:18:01 | Updated at 2024-09-30 03:33:20
3 hours ago
Hurricane Helene has left officials in five southeastern states grappling to respond to the widespread destruction it caused after hitting Florida as a Category 4 story last week, as the death toll continues to rise.
The big picture: Officials on Sunday confirmed 30 deaths in the flood-hit Buncombe County, western North Carolina, where Asheville officials reported historic water level rises — bringing the number of storm-related deaths to at least 84, per AP.
- Officials have also confirmed storm-related deaths in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia, as search and rescue teams continued to respond to the fallout from the hurricane that struck Florida late Thursday before moving into Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee.
- Several eastern Tennessee communities near the North Carolina border were also affected by catastrophic flooding from the storm's remnants.
Meanwhile, widespread outages still affected hundreds of thousands of people in multiple states Sunday evening, including North and South Carolina and Georgia.
State of play: Underscoring the widespread threats the former Hurricane Helene posed, the White House approved emergency requests for federal assistance from Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Alabama before ahead of the storm's landfall.
- FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told CBS News Sunday that the five states affected by the storm "are going to have very complicated recoveries, but we will continue to bring those resources in to help them, technical assistance as they're trying to identify the best ways to rebuild."
- She noted on CBS' "Face the Nation" there's "historic flooding" in North Carolina, particularly in the state's west.
- "I don't know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides they are having right now," Criswell said.
- Pamlico County Emergency Management in a Saturday Facebook post described the damage from the remnants of the storm in Chimney Rock, some 41 miles southeast of Asheville, as "unimaginable."
Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and it’s hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. It’s so overwhelming you don’t even know how to fathom what recovery looks like, let alone where to start. Going to be a long path to recovery that… pic.twitter.com/HnyxwyQB76
— Tariq Scott Bokhari (@FinTechInnov8r) September 29, 2024Zoom in: Criswell joined Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to survey damage in hurricane-hit state on Tuesday and she was surveying damage in Valdosta, Georgia, on Sunday. She'll meet with leaders in flood-affected North Carolina communities on Monday.
By the numbers: Over 813,000 customers were without power in South Carolina on Sunday evening and another 605,000 others in Georgia were also without electricity, per poweroutage.us.
- More than 486,000 in N.C. and over 153,000 in Florida also had no power, according to the utility tracker.
Between the lines: Hurricanes are increasingly likely to become more intense due in large part to human-caused climate change, studies show.
- Hurricane Helene was part of a growing trend of storms that have undergone rapid intensification. This one was among eight other landfalling storms in the U.S. that rapidly intensified by at least 35 mph in 24 hours before landfall.
- The extreme intensification rate was due in large part to hot ocean surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, along with ocean heat content values. Research shows climate change is boosting global ocean temperatures.
- Criswell noted on CBS that in the past, "when we would look at damage from hurricanes, it was primarily wind damage, with some water damage."
- Now, "we're seeing so much more water damage, and I think that is a result of the warm waters, which is a result of climate change."
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