Over 20 Dead In Georgia Following Helene's Flooding, Destruction
GEORGIA — The number of people dead in the wake of Hurricane Helene's treacherous path of destruction through the state had reached more than 20 as of Sunday morning, according to the Associated Press.
The death count for Helene across five Southeast states as of Sunday sat at 64, with the storm causing a preliminary estimate of at least $95 billion in damages and economic losses. Authorities expect more fatalities to be confirmed in hard-hit western North Carolina.
Among the dead in Georgia were a 27-year-old mother and her 1-month old twins, who died Friday when trees fell on their house in Thomson, just west of Augusta.
Vernon "Leon" Davis, a Pierce County firefighter, was killed when a tree fell on his car Friday in Blackshear, 11Alive reported . Additionally, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl died in Washington County after a tree fell on their home and trapped them inside the burning house, Augusta television station WRDW reported .
One of the hardest hit areas was the downstate city of Valdosta.
Rhonda Bell and her husband were spending a sleepless night in the downstairs bedroom of their century-old home just outside Valdosta, where Helene's center passed shortly after midnight.
The winds broke off limbs, tore away neighbors' roof shingles and knocked down fence panels in the neighborhood with train tracks along one edge. Then a towering oak tree crashed through the roof of an upstairs bedroom.
"I just felt the whole house shake," Bell said. "Thank God we're both alive to tell about it."
Valdosta resident Bill Parmelee told NBC News that Helene "sounded like a freight train"
"That wind was really howling," he told the outlet. "As it would howl, then a tree would fall. Some of them fell in the yards. Some of them fell on the house."
Vehicles snaked almost a mile around a gas station in Valdosta, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , which reported a woman and her daughters walked to the station with a gas can after passing five that had no fuel.
Valdosta State University canceled in-poerson classes for the week, the newspaper reported.
Further north, Atlanta was hit with 11 inches of rain, the heaviest 48-hour downfall since the city began keeping records in 1878.
Streets flooded, submerging cars. Firefighters rescued at least 20 people.
In the Buckhead neighborhood, boats rescued two adults and their baby, the athletic fields were submerged under about 4 feet of water at Westmisters Schools of Atlanta, and cars were abandoned partially underwater while homes and businesses flooded, according to the Journal-Constitution .
No injuries or deaths have been reported in Atlanta.
In Augusta, officials notified residents Sunday morning that water service would be shut off for 24 to 48 hours in the city and surrounding Richmond County.
A news release said trash and debris from the storm "blocked our ability to pump water." Officials were distributing bottled water at the municipal building and said each household would receive one case.
The city was also under a curfew from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. as of Saturday, according to the Journal-Constitution.
Georgia was among 10 states still dealing with power outages Saturday in the wake of Helene. As of mid-day Sunday over 660,000 homes and businesses were still without power, according to poweroutage.us.
Georgia EMC, which represents 41 Georgia cooperatives that supply power to much of the state's rural areas, warned of "catastrophic" damage to utility infrastructure. The company said more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines had been damaged in the storm.
Helene came ashore in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday, packing winds of 140 mph before quickly moving through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
On Friday, the governor issued an order to allow the Georgia Department of Defense to deploy an additional 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops for storm response. Search and rescue teams from Maryland were also in the state to assist with recovery efforts, Kemp said.
President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late Friday morning.
