Update: Extent of Helene’s Damage

Update, Oct. 4 – The news out of western North Carolina just gets worse as the extent of the damage seen in new before-and-after aerial photos paint a grim picture of Hurricane Helene’s devastation in Asheville and the surrounding mountain communities. The monstrously sized Category 4 hurricane carved a more than 500-mile path of destruction across the Southeast and has killed more than 200 people, making it the second-deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland in the past 50 years.

Update, Oct. 1 – At least 130 people have died across six states and officials fear the death toll may rise following Hurricane Helene. About 600 residents remain missing in Asheville, NC, where supplies to inaccessible areas are being delivered by mules and by air, with people hiking hours to find and help loved ones.

Update, Sept. 30 – After tearing through Florida’s northern Gulf Coast last week, Helene’s winds diminished but the storm’s torrential rains wreaked havoc on the Southeast, especially the vulnerable clay soils of western North Carolina, resulting in unprecedented and destructive flooding. The death toll has risen to 100, with some still unaccounted for. Officials were racing to find victims, rescue people and restore flood-damaged water systems on Sunday. In Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, the sheriff said Sunday morning that there were at least 30 storm-related deaths.

Hurricane Helene roared through Florida and Georgia under darkness last Thursday and Friday as one of the most powerful storms to hit the U.S., killing at least 43 people, swamping neighborhoods and leaving more than 3 million homes and businesses without power.

The Category 4 storm hit Florida’s Big Bend region at 11:10 p.m. ET on Sept. 26, leaving a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbors, felled trees, stranded cars and flooded streets.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed the death of a driver whose car was struck by debris and warned the death toll was likely to rise. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said on X that two people in Wheeler County had died after a tornado touched down during the storm, and an ABC News affiliate reported that a firefighter was killed when a tree fell on his vehicle in Blackshear, Georgia.

More than four million homes and businesses in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and other U.S. Southeast states were without power, according to the tracking website Poweroutage.us. Police and firefighters carried out hundreds of water rescues throughout the states, including as far north as Atlanta, where an apartment complex had to be evacuated due to flooding.

Helene, which punished Florida with 140 mph (225 kph) winds when it came ashore, weakened to a Cat 1 as it moved into Georgia in the early hours of Friday morning. The still-powerful storm was packing sustained maximum winds of 70 mph (113 kph) as of 5 a.m. and was forecast to continue shuffling northward toward the Tennessee Valley.

Life-threatening storm surges, winds and heavy rains continued, the National Hurricane Center said. The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for several counties in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina on Friday morning.

One resident of Cedar Key—a picturesque island jutting into the Gulf off Florida’s Big Bend coast—told CNN that he and about 50 residents had decided to ride the storm out.

Storm surge from Helene, which the authorities had warned could be “unsurvivable,” was moving entire mobile homes in Steinhatchee, a coastal community where gauges recorded water levels of about 10 feet late Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

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