Helene was a deadly monster storm swiftly on the move on Friday morning, after making landfall hours earlier as a nightmare category four hurricane in north-east Florida.
At least five people had already been reported killed overnight and Atlanta, Georgia, was early on Friday under a rare flash flood emergency warning. The gigantic tempest swirled on as a tropical storm with winds up to 70mph and torrential rain posing dangers across a wide area.
Hurricane Helene hit the Big Bend area of Florida, close to the state capital of Tallahassee, the first recorded category four to make landfall in that area, just after 11pm local time on Thursday, bringing 140mph sustained winds and catastrophic storm surges.
States of emergency have been declared in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Alabama, while high winds, rain and flooding were expected to extend for hundreds of miles, bringing extreme weather to cities as far from the eye as Indianaopolis, Indiana, and St Louis, Missouri.
By early Friday, one person was reported dead in Florida, two in Georgia and one in North Carolina, with daybreak expected to reveal a higher death toll and the danger far from over as the fast-moving storm was over North Carolina.
Even 100 miles away from where the hurricane made landfall, Tampa Bay, Florida experienced a huge storm surge as the ocean carried boats across highways in parts.
“When we wake up tomorrow morning, the chances are there will likely have been more fatalities,” said Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, on Thursday, confirming the death of a driver whose car was struck by debris.
It was pitch dark when Helene arrived on land and roared through Florida and Georgia as one of the most powerful storms to hit the United States, swamping neighborhoods and leaving more than two million homes and businesses without power.
“Continued weakening is expected, and Helene is expected to become a post-tropical low this afternoon or tonight. However, life-threatening storm surges, winds and heavy rains continue,” the National Hurricane Center said early on Friday.
The Center posted on X that people should expect “catastrophic, life-threatening, record-breaking flash and urban flooding. As Helene continues moving inland, damaging wind gusts will continue, particularly over high terrain southern Appalachians”.
Climate scientists have warned that global heating is increasing the numbers and strengths of powerful hurricanes. While no individual storm is down to climate change, the new pattern of more and stronger hurricanes is powered by the planet’s warming oceans and seas. Much of Helen’s power came from the strength it gathered over the Gulf of Mexico, which has reached unprecedented high temperatures in recent years.
The storm swamped parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday after whirling in from the Caribbean Sea, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancún.
It then roared across the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters, where temperatures are rising because of the human-driven climate crisis, before hitting Florida.
In Taylor county, Florida, the sheriff’s department wrote on social media that residents who decided not to evacuate should write their names and dates of birth on their arms in permanent ink “so that you can be identified and family notified”.
Some residents were staying stubbornly put.
“We’re under orders, but I’m going to stay right here at the house,” state ferry boat operator Ken Wood, 58, told Reuters from coastal Dunedin in Florida, where he planned to ride out the storm with his 16-year-old cat Andy.
Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began in June. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting.