An aerial view of damaged houses are seen after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, on September 28.
Photo: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
On Thursday evening, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as a massive Category 4 storm with winds reaching 140 mph. As the system made its way across the southeastern portion of the United States, it left widespread flooding, power outages, and mass destruction in its wake.
CNN reports that as of Monday morning, at least 115 people are dead across six states with that tally expected to rise as search and rescue operations continue. Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina, one of the hardest hit areas that includes the city of Asheville, said that at least 35 people were killed as a result of Helene, with more than 600 still unaccounted for as of Monday morning.
In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp announced that the state’s death toll had risen to 25 people by Monday morning, the loss of life ranging from a mother and her two young sons to a local firefighter. “This storm literally spared no one,” he said, per NBC News.
Over the weekend, President Joe Biden issued emergency-disaster declarations for the Carolinas, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia as the states continue to grapple with the remnants and aftereffects of Helene. The president indicated that he plans to travel to the affected areas on Wednesday or Thursday in order to avoid disrupting emergency services. “It’s not just a catastrophic storm. It’s a historic, history-making storm,” Biden said speaking from the White House Monday.
