A damaged 100-year-old home is seen after an Oak tree landed on it after Hurricane Helene moved through the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Photos: Destruction caused by Hurricane Helene
The system generated a massive storm surge and knocked out power to millions of customers in several states.
Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 25 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said dozens of people were still trapped in buildings damaged by the Category 4 hurricane. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Florida’s rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida’s Panhandle and peninsula meet.
But the damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as North Carolina, where a lake used in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam. Multiple hospitals in southern Georgia were without power, and one in Tennessee was closed.
Officer Nate Martir, a law enforcement officer from the Florida Fish Wildlife and Conservation Commission, holds an American flag that was lying on the ground amid debris, while patrolling from a high water capable swamp buggy, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)Faith Cotto comforts her mother Nancy as they look at the remains of their home which burned during the flooding from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)A member of the USGS checks the information in the bridge station on Hermi’s Bridge checking the water gauge along the Chattahoochee River near Paces Ferry Drive SE after Hurricane Helene ed the area, Friday, Sept 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)This photo provided by Venice Police Department rescue crews assist residents after conducting door-to-door wellness checks, in coastal areas that were flooded by Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Venice, Fla . (Venice Police Department via AP)
The San Diego Union-Tribune
A motorist drives through flood waters on Roselle Street in Sorrento Valley near Dunhill Street, December 26, 2019 in San Diego, California.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Joe Kaeser, CEO of Siemens, addresses the media during a statement in Berlin, , Friday. Jan. 10, 2020. Kaeser met German representatives of the Fridays-for-Future movement and said the company takes the activists' concerns seriously. (Soeren Stache/dpa via AP)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pro-democracy demonstrators hold banners and placards during a rally at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2020. As Hong Kong enters its eighth month of anti-government protests, Beijing's new top official in the territory said Monday that he has full confidence in the city's long-term prosperity and stability ?— so long as it has the of mainland China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
