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MILLIONS WITHOUT POWER; MULTIPLE DEATHS; FLOOD EMERGENCIES IN 5 STATES

September 27, 2024

DEVELOPING STORY: Hurricane Helene was a dangerous Category 4 storm when it made landfall over Florida’s Big Bend area late Thursday night but weakened rapidly as it raced inland early Friday and was downgraded to a tropical storm in mere hours, the National Hurricane Center said. Still, Helene was bringing a “life-threatening” storm surge, strong winds and heavy rain, the center said.

As of 8 a.m. EDT, Helene was approximately 35 miles south-southwest of Clemson, Georgia, and 80 miles east-northeast of Atlanta and was racing north at 30 mph, the Miami-based hurricane center said. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 60 mph.

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Helene made landfall about 10 miles west of Perry, Florida, at 11:10 p.m. EDT, according to the hurricane center, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph.

“This is the fourth hurricane to make landfall on the Gulf Coast this year. This has happened only five other times in history,” meteorologist Stephanie Abrams of The Weather Channel said on “CBS Mornings” Friday.  

Over 1.1 million customers in Florida were without power Friday morning, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

About a million customers in Georgia, nearly 1.4 million more in South Carolina and over 589,000 in North Carolina had no electricity. Those numbers were growing rapidly.

What’s more, over 50,000 homes and businesses had no power in both Tennessee and Virginia, for a total of over 4 million in the six states.

So far, there have been at least four weather-related deaths attributed to Helene. Two people were killed in Wheeler County, Georgia, county coroner Ted Mercer told CBS News by phone. No further details were provided.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed in a late-night news conference that at least one person was killed in the Tampa area when a traffic sign fell on a vehicle.

In North Carolina, a person was killed when a tree fell on a house, according to the Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency. Another person was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

DeSantis said about 3,500 National Guardsmen were standing by to respond to emergencies.

Several airports closed because of the storm, and airlines canceled nearly 1,300 flights Thursday, according to FlightAware. Nearly 800 U.S. flights were already canceled as of Friday morning.  

Watch X Videos of the Flooding

  • The Todd Starnes Podcast
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