Hurricane Helene death toll tops 200

A man in a kayak uses a makeshift paddle as he travels through a street flooded by Hurricane Helene. | Ramon Espinosa/AP

On Thursday, the death toll from Hurricane Helene rose to at least 200, according to authorities, the Associated Press reported.

Helicopters searched for survivors above washed-out bridges, while rescuers hiked through the wilderness.

After pummeling Florida’s Gulf Coast, the powerful Category 4 storm dumped over 40 trillion gallons of rainfall — enough to fill up Lake Tahoe — throughout the southern United States, reported The Guardian.

“That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Tuscaloosa, Alabama, water center, as the Associated Press reported.

The deluge created a catastrophic mixture of flooding, mudslides, and disruptions to power, internet, and water supplies.

The office of Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the presidential candidate was headed to Georgia Wednesday to survey Helene’s impacts on communities in the state.

President Joe Biden was scheduled to survey the damage in the Carolinas, reported AFP.

The death toll in North Carolina was at least 74, while South Carolina reported 39 fatalities. In Georgia the death toll reached 33 according to Gov. Brian Kemp. 14 deaths were reported in Florida, two in Virginia, and four in Tennessee, local authorities and reports from media compiled by AFP said.

Stefanie Scarfia, a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida, was working as a travel nurse in North Carolina when the storm hit.

For almost five days, Scarfia was stranded at Little Switzerland, North Carolina’s Big Lynn Lodge, CNN reported.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve lived in Florida,” Scarfia told the news outlet. “I’ve never been in something this bad.”

Scarfia said she was unable to make it to work on Friday after a landslide caused her vehicle to become stuck.

“That is the biggest problem here, is the landslides. Roads are completely washed away off the side of the mountain,” Scarfia, who offered her medical knowledge to those at the lodge, added.

Emergency crews were working to restore power and water across the devastated region. Hundreds remain unaccounted for, but officials were hopeful that the restoration of cell service would lead to reunions of missing residents with their loved ones.

“We know that the devastation brought by Hurricane Helene is beyond belief. Communities were wiped off the map,” Governor of North Carolina Roy Cooper stated at a briefing on Tuesday, adding his belief that the death toll there would rise, as reported by AFP.

“The challenges are immense,” Cooper added.

Western North Carolina’s Buncombe County, home to the picturesque town of Asheville, was the hardest hit with nearly 60 fatalities.

Nearly 900,000 customers were still without power on Thursday, according to https://poweroutage.us/.

Helene was a gigantic hurricane that reached more than 500 miles inland after making landfall late Thursday of last week with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour.

Scientists have said climate change is contributing to the rapid intensification of hurricanes since they gain strength from warming oceans.

Biden’s response to the question of whether global heating was responsible for Hurricane Helene’s extreme level of destruction was, “Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

This article was reposted from EcoWatch.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Cristen Hemingway Jaynes

Cristen Hemingway Jaynes covers the environment, climate change, oceans, the Arctic, animals, anthropology, astronomy, plastics pollution, and politics. She holds a JD and an Ocean & Coastal Law Certificate from the University of Oregon School of Law.