Helene leaves destructive legacy

Helene's fiercest weather is history, but its legacy will be devastating coastal damage, widespread power outages and catastrophic rainfall totals.  

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

The National Hurricane Center’s Storm Surge Unit estimates a storm surge of at least 15 feet (4.5 metres) occurred in the Big Bend area of Florida during Helene’s Thursday night landfall, 26th September.

Hardest hit was Keaton Beach, Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach. The drone footage below shows the devastation in Steinhatchee, Florida:

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 (300 mm) of rain fell across the southern Appalachians with several stations in North Carolina reporting more than 2 feet (600 mm) 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. Video footage from Tennessee below.

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 US 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 4.3 million power outages were reported on Friday 27th September. Saturday morning outages still exceeded 3 million from Florida to Ohio.

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.