MONITORING (SW) – Tropical Depression Helene brought life-threatening flooding on Friday to wide sections of the US Southeast, where at least 43 people have been killed by a storm that swamped neighborhoods, triggered mudslides, threatened dams and left more than 3.5 million homes and businesses without power.
Before moving north through Georgia and into Tennessee and the Carolinas, Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Thursday night, packing 140 mph (225 kph) winds. It left behind a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbors, felled trees, submerged cars and flooded streets.
By early Friday afternoon, the storm had been downgraded to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.
But Helene’s heavy rains were still producing catastrophic flooding in many areas, with police and firefighters carrying out thousands of water rescues throughout the affected states.
More than 50 people were rescued from the roof of a hospital in Unicoi County, Tennessee, about 120 miles (200 km) northeast of Knoxville, state officials said, after floodwaters swamped the rural community.
