Helicopters have been dispatched to help rescue stranded patients stuck on the roof of a Tennessee hospital due to flooding from Hurricane Helene .
On Friday morning Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin was evacuated due to unusually high and rising water from the Nolichucky River. But as evacuation efforts were underway conditions worsened, Ballad Health
.The water around the hospital, which had also begun intruding inside the hospital, became extremely dangerous and impassable and prevented the boats from safely being able to evacuate the hospital, and due to high winds, no helicopters could safely fly in an effort to help evacuate the hospital , the hospital system said.
"The water there simply came up faster with more debris than was safe to operate in the rafts to ferry from a dry point back to the hospital," said Patrick Sheehan, Tennessee's emergency operations director.
54 people were relocated to the roof of the building, while seven others remained in rescue boats. Images showed ambulances outside the hospital submerged in floodwaters and elderly patients on lifeboats.
By Friday afternoon Virginia State Police said they dispatched aviation units to help with the rescue of the patients and staff still trapped on the roof. Authorities tweeted a photo showing nearly fully submerged hospital with some people scattered on the rooftop.
Patrick Sheehan, the director of Tennessee's emergency management agency, said that three helicopters from the Tennessee Army National Guard were also en route to the scene, NBC News reported. "That’s a great relief to us in the community, to take care of those Tennesseans," Sheehan said during a Zoom briefing.
Meanwhile in Florida, the efforts of 1,500 search-and-rescue personnel will be concentrated on securing and stabilizing affected communities through the weekend, said Kevin Guthrie, the state's emergency operations director. The Category 4 storm made landfall on the Northwest Florida coast late Thursday, but it created flooding from storm surge all along the state's Gulf Coast, the Associated Press reported.
"As those sorts of rescue missions happen today, and continue, please do not go out and visit the impacted areas," Guthrie said at a Friday news conference in the Florida capital of Tallahassee. "I beg of you, do not get in their way." The reported rescues ranged from life-threatening situations to people trapped in their homes by waist-high water and unable to flee on their own.
Five people died in Pinellas County and dozens were rescued after the storm surge hit an unprecedented 8 feet, forcing some to seek shelter in their attics. Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the deaths all occurred in neighborhoods where authorities told residents to evacuate, but many ignored the warnings.
He said survivors told deputies they didn't believe the warnings after other residents told them the surge wouldn't be that bad.
"We made our case. We told people what they needed to do, and they chose otherwise," Gualtieri said.
Gualtieri said his deputies tried overnight to reach those who had been trapped, but in some neighborhoods it just wasn't safe. Pinellas County includes St. Petersburg. "I was out there personally. We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high-water vehicles and we just met with too many obstacles," Gualtieri said. He said the death toll could rise as emergency crews go door-to-door in the flooded areas to see if anyone remains.
In neighboring Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, the sheriff's office rescued more than 300 people overnight from storm surge. Spokesperson Amanda Granit said those included a 97-year-old woman with dementia and her 63-year-old daughter, who got surprised by the surge and needed help fleeing their flooded home; and a 19-year-old woman whose car got stuck as she drove in the rising water and couldn't get out.
At sea, the Coast Guard said it rescued three boaters and their pets from the storm in separate incidents. In a Thursday helicopter rescue captured on Coast Guard video, a man and his Irish setter were stranded 25 miles offshore in the Gulf on their 36-foot sailboat in heavy seas.
The video shows the man putting his dog into a yellow rescue vest and pushing it into the raging sea before jumping in himself. A Coast Guard swimmer helped them into a rescue basket and they were hoisted into the copter. In North Carolina, more than 100 swift-water rescues had occurred as Helene's rains caused massive flooding Friday, particularly in the state's western section. Gov. Roy Cooper said the flash floods are threatening lives and are creating numerous landslides.
"The priority now is saving lives," Cooper said, begging people to stay off the roads unless they were seeking higher ground.
"With the rain that they already had been experiencing before Helene's arrival, this is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina," Cooper said.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp said crews are working to rescue people trapped in more than 115 homes. Helene's rains flooded homes in Hanover West, a neighborhood in north Atlanta. Emergency personnel rescued several people from their homes, said Richard Simms, a resident in a nearby neighborhood.
Hurricane Helene left more than four million homes and businesses in Florida without power after it landed in Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm. At least 35 people across four states are reported dead .
In Florida, seven persons were confirmed to have died. The individuals died in horrific incidents: one was crushed under a tree that fell on a house and others drowned as the flash floods were too much to handle. The biggest damge came to the Big Bend region, which endured two other natural disasters over the past year. In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp confirmed 11 deaths with one being a first responder, two people were said to have died in a tornado while it's unclear what happened to the others. Kemp said: "this has been a deadly storm."
Helene, which weakened to a tropical storm by the time it left South Florida, traveled nearly 800 miles into the mountains of Appalachia, bringing flash floods and dangerous mudslides inland. Ryan Cole, the assistant director for emergency services in Buncombe County, called the event “the most significant natural disaster that any of us have ever seen." Neighborhoods were soon flooded as wind chopped trees and other shrubbery in half.
Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. More than 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, more than 190,000 in Georgia and more than 30,000 in the Carolinas, according to the tracking site. The governors of those states and Alabama and Virginia all declared emergencies.
Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.
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