Important Takeaways:
- Authorities in North Carolina on Monday confirmed at least 94 storm-related fatalities from Hurricane Helene but still could not account for the number of those who remain missing or unaccounted for.
- Fatalities were reported across 20 counties, according to a morning update from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS).
- The vast majority of those fatalities were reported in Buncombe, with 42 deaths, followed by Yancey and Henderson, at 12 and 7, respectively.
- NCDHSS said there are no missing persons numbers at this time because there are different sources of where missing persons and welfare check requests were reported during the storm.
- Justin J. Graney, Chief of External Affairs and Communications for North Carolina Emergency Management, told Fox News Digital there are “wide area searches taking place since [Hurricane Helen] took place.”
- “This includes grid searches, vehicle searches, damaged structure searches, and searches around areas where debris have collected. Hundreds of responders have conducted said searches,” Graney said.
- On Thursday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed the state’s first relief package to address Helene’s devastation, allocating $273 million for immediate needs and giving flexibility to agencies and displaced residents.
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Important Takeaways:
- Communities are stranded, over 200 people have died with more expected, and more than 700,000 are without power
- Rescue crews in parts of the south-eastern US were still searching on Friday for those missing as they entered the eighth day since Hurricane Helene roared ashore in Florida and became the deadliest mainland hurricane in the US since Katrina in 2005.
- The death toll could grow higher, having surpassed 200 on Thursday, while the sheer scale of the devastation from wind and floods has slowed efforts to find many people’s loved ones and also get supplies to stranded communities and restore power to more than 700,000 people.
- Officials have reported at least 215 deaths across six states as a result of Helene and warned that more will be found dead in the coming days and weeks
- In hardest-hit North Carolina, thousands of residents were issued boil water advisories and said that 27 water plants were closed and not producing water.
- On Friday, the number of power outages in the south-eastern region fell below a million for the first time since the storm. Still, more than 250,000 people in South Carolina had no power as of Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us, as well as over 230,000 people in North Carolina, just over 200,000 in Georgia, 13,000 in Virginia and 10,000 in Florida.
- Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, has warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does not have enough funding to make it through the rest of this hurricane season, which typically runs until late November.
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Important Takeaways:
- The confirmed death toll for Hurricane Helene rose to at least 189 people as of Wednesday evening, The Associated Press reported, making it the deadliest hurricane since Katrina to hit the mainland U.S.
- The storm surge, wind damage and inland flooding from Hurricane Helene have been catastrophic, flooding neighborhoods, stranding residents and destroying homes in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee.
- Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region Thursday night as a massive Category 4 hurricane, was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend on record.
- As recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic force continue, 1.2 million customers are still without power in some southern states.
- The hardest-hit states are South Carolina with over 484,410 customers without power, North Carolina with over 343,632 customers without power and Georgia with over 354,418 customers without power.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hurricane Helene has left officials in six Southeastern states grappling to respond to the widespread destruction it caused after hitting Florida as a Category 4 storm last week.
- More than 500,000 customers were without power in South Carolina and nearly 380,000 others in Georgia were without electricity on Wednesday morning, per poweroutage.us.
- Over 349,000 in N.C., nearly 47,000 in Virginia and almost 41,000 in Florida also had no power, according to the utility tracker.
- The American Red Cross has received more than 3,000 requests for help from those looking for lost loved ones in the last 24 hours, and the agency reported more than 2,400 survivors in 75 shelters from Florida to North Carolina, Axios reported.
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Important Takeaways:
- On Monday, the North Carolina State Climate Office provided a picture of how the “monster storm” was nearly a “worst-case scenario for western North Carolina.”
- “Torrential rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Helene capped off three days of extreme, unrelenting precipitation, which left catastrophic flooding and unimaginable damage in our Mountains and southern Foothills,” a post from the office says. “… the full extent of this event will take years to document – not to mention, to recover from.”
- Water was already beginning to inundate cities, “all while the heaviest rain from Helene was just beginning to fall,” the climate office said. The more than 300 miles of tropical storm-force winds Helene produced only amplified the situation, pushing more moisture up mountains.
- From the start of the precursor frontal showers on Wednesday evening to the heart of Helene moving through on Friday morning, it was one of the most incredible and impactful weather events our state has ever seen
- In Buncombe County, home to Asheville, Emergency Services Assistant Director Ryan Cole told the Citizen-Times that “catastrophic devastation” didn’t accurately describe the impact the deluge had.
- “It would go a little bit further and say we have biblical devastation through the county,” Cole said. “We’ve had biblical flooding here and it has been extremely significant.”
- The day after Helene made landfall, at least six tornadoes were confirmed, including an EF3 in Rocky Mount that destroyed several buildings.
- Officials often retire hurricane names when they are particularly devastating, and while such action has yet to be announced, the climatologists suggest it may only be a matter of time.
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Important Takeaways:
- Authorities are going house-to-house and urging people below the dam of a popular lake in the western North Carolina mountains to evacuate as officials warn the barrier could be nearing failure.
- Relentless rain from what was once Hurricane Helene has resulted in catastrophic flooding from Florida to North Carolina as the storm moves inland across the Southeast.
- By Friday afternoon, officials said that the wall of the dam is currently holding but water from the flooded Broad River is overtopping it and support structures have been compromised.
- “Move to higher ground now!” NWS officials wrote in the warning. “This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.”
- All of western North Carolina is under a high risk of flooding Friday, with as much as 20 inches of rain possible in some places before Helene moves away this weekend.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hurricane Helene continues to strengthen and is now a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph. The National Hurricane Center says Helene will likely become a major Category 3 hurricane when it makes landfall along Florida’s Big Bend region late Thursday night or early Friday morning.
- Nearly the entire state of Florida is under some sort of tropical weather alert, with Tropical Storm Warnings extending hundreds of miles inland into Georgia and the Carolinas, including Atlanta.
- The National Hurricane Center (NHC) says that because of Hurricane Helene’s massive size, there is a significant risk of a life-threatening storm surge along the entire west coast of the Florida Peninsula, as well as Florida’s Big Bend region.
- “A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level, along with destructive waves,” the NHC warned.
- Earlier this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency for 61 of the state’s 67 counties to help agencies prepare for the storm.
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Important Takeaways:
- These two characteristics are making it a unique threat to millions of Floridians and people in surrounding states as it moves north-northeastward today and Thursday.
- The storm’s large size, with tropical storm winds (sustained at 39mph to 73mph with higher gusts) extending at least 250 miles east of the storm center, ensures that nearly every Florida city outside the western Panhandle will see strong winds.
- Power outages are also likely to be widespread in Georgia and parts of South Carolina, as the storm may still be a hurricane when it moves into southern and south-central Georgia on Friday.
- Storms that have large wind fields can push more water close to the coast and produce a larger, more damaging storm surge.
- The Hurricane Center’s forecast intensification rate on Monday morning was the highest it had issued to date when going from a pre-named system to a major hurricane.
- The storm’s size and intensification rate will require most, if not all, storm preparations to be made across Florida today, with residents of Georgia having slightly more time.
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