Helene slams Southeast, killing at least 45 people; millions without power

Hurricane Helene killed at least 45 people across multiple states and left more than 3.8 million customers without power from Florida to Ohio as it continued to wreak havoc across the Southeast.

The storm crashed ashore in Florida's Big Bend area on Thursday night as a dangerous Category 4 storm. Despite weakening to a post-tropical cyclone, Helene was still causing "catastrophic, historic" flooding in the southern Appalachians late Friday night, the National Hurricane Center said.

Helene was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the hurricane center said. High wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.

In Tennessee, floodwaters forced dozens of people at a hospital to flee to the roof to be rescued. Unicoi County Hospital was "engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water," Ballad Health said on social media . By late Friday afternoon, the hospital's personnel and patients were rescued, according to Ballad Health .

At least 45 deaths have been attributed to Helene. A spokesperson for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said 15 people were killed in the state. A first responder was among the dead, Kemp said earlier Friday.

In South Carolina, 19 people died from the storm, officials confirmed to CBS News. The deaths include two firefighters and two people who were killed when trees fell on residences.

In Florida, the Pinellas County administrator confirmed five fatalities to CBS News. Gov. Ron DeSantis also told reporters that at least one person was killed in the Tampa area when a traffic sign fell on a vehicle, and Tampa police confirmed a woman in her late 70s was found dead in her home after water made it into the residence. Another person died in Dixie County when a tree fell on a home, DeSantis told reporters.

In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper said two people died in his state. One person died in a collision on a flooded road, Cooper said. Another person was killed when a tree fell on a house, according to the Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency. Another person in that incident was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin confirmed in a Friday news conference that one person was killed.

As of 11 p.m. EDT Friday, Helene was centered approximately 115 miles northeast of Paducah, Kentucky, and was churning southwest at 8 mph, the Miami-based hurricane center said. It was forecast to stall over the Tennessee Valley through the weekend.

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

Meteorologist Stephanie Abrams of The Weather Channel said on "CBS Mornings" Friday that Helene is the fourth hurricane to make landfall on the Gulf Coast this year, which has happened only five other times in history.

Helene is the third hurricane to hit the Big Bend region in the last 13 months. In 2023, Hurricane Idalia , a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, generated a record-breaking storm surge from Tampa to the Big Bend. Last August, Hurricane Debby also hit the area.

"The early reports we've received is that the damage in those counties that were really in the eye of the storm has exceeded the damage of Idalia and Debby combined," DeSantis told reporters in a news conference Friday.

In the waters off Florida's Sanibel Island, a Coast Guard crew made a daring rescue, saving a man and his dog who were stranded on his 36-foot sailboat.

"We have a lot of damage throughout the state, water mostly on the west coast and the peninsula," DeSantis said.

In the Big Bend fishing village of Steinhatchee, storm-weary residents prayed Helene would miss them, but the waterside docks and restaurants that once stood here though are now gone.

The storm surge shoved buildings off their foundations. Linda Wicker lost the restaurant she has owned for 20 years. She seemed more shaken by what she saw across her village, homes torn apart by the wind and the deep water.

"If you let it play with your mind, you just can't go there," Wicker said. "You can't. It's horrible."

Wicker and her family are already thinking about how to restore, what Helene washed away.

"There's a lot of folks that don't have a place to go, have nothing, no money, no home, no nothing, so we got to work to help them too," Wicker said.

On historic Davis Islands in Tampa, streets were under water and boats had washed up on land. One home was gutted by flames. Marie Terry, who lives next door, would have been in the neighborhood unless her daughter had insisted she evacuate.

"I'm just in shock," Terry told CBS News. "It's just such a beautiful house, and to see it like this, it's like, what could have happened?"

Daylight revealed scenes of utter destruction along Florida's Gulf Coast: a giant tree into an apartment building in Tallahassee and boats in the front yards in Treasure Island.

More than 3.8 million customers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia were without power late Friday night, according to utility tracker Find Energy .

DeSantis said emergency crews conducted thousands of rescue missions overnight.

In Atlanta, crews helped bring a couple, their baby and two dogs to safety.

"The vehicle was traveling in through the water, and the vehicle started to float, and it floated off the roadway," Atlanta Fire Rescue  Capt. Scott Seely said. "They were able to get out of the vehicle and get on top of the vehicle."

Nearby, an apartment complex flooded, and neighbors had to rescue each other. Sam Oni, 83, was one of them.

"But I thought I would somehow escape it, but I did not…and I owe a lot to my neighbors," Oni told CBS News.

In Valdosta, Georgia, entire neighborhoods were under water, with more than 115 structures sustaining severe damage, Kemp said in a news conference.

"We're also trying to get to multiple structures right now that we know have individuals inside," Kemp said. "…We'll literally have to cut our way into situations like this."

Several airports closed because of the storm, and airlines canceled nearly 1,300 flights Thursday, according to FlightAware . About 1,000 U.S. flights were canceled as of Friday afternoon.

There have been more than 100 swift water rescues across North Carolina. The intense flooding has swept away cars and dumpsters, and even propane tanks were seen floating in the water.

"This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina," Cooper said in a news briefing.

More than 175 people sheltered in a school in Tallahassee.

Annie Sloan, who was one of them, told CBS News Miami : "I decided to come to the shelter because I live alone and basically my son came to take me to Georgia, but we discovered the hurricane was going to Georgia also, and I decided to just come here and shelter because my husband passed, and I don't want to be home alone."

Most gas stations in the Tallahassee area were shut down or out of gas.

School districts and numerous universities called off classes for Friday.

CBS News senior weather and climate producer David Parkinson described Helene as a "gargantuan" storm.

NASA shared video of the hurricane as seen from the International Space Station, showing the size of the storm as it churned through the Gulf of Mexico Thursday afternoon.

President Biden and DeSantis declared emergencies in the state earlier in the week, and evacuation orders were issued in several counties.

States of emergency were also declared in Georgia, North and South Carolina and as far north as Virginia.

Exceptionally warm Gulf water fuels hurricanes

Record-warm water in the Gulf almost certainly acted like jet fuel in intensifying the storm. Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, recently noted that ocean heat content in the Gulf of Mexico is the highest on record. Warm water is a necessary ingredient to strengthen tropical systems.

Sea surface temperatures in the path of Helene were as warm as 89 degrees Fahrenheit — 2 to 4 degrees above normal.

These record water temperatures have been made significantly more likely by human-caused climate change , according to Climate Central. The North Atlantic Ocean as a whole has seen record warm temperatures in 2024, storing 90% of the excess heat from climate change produced by greenhouse gas pollution .

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1.