Severe Weather

A new study says hurricanes in the United States are hundreds of times deadlier in the long run than the government calculates. In fact, the researchers say they contribute to more American deaths than car accidents or all the nation’s wars. Wednesday’s study says the average storm hitting the U.S. contributes to the early deaths of 7,000 to 11,000 people over a 15-year period. That dwarfs the average of 24 immediate and direct deaths that the government counts in a hurricane’s aftermath. Study authors said even with Hurricane Helene’s growing triple digit direct death count, far more people will die in future years in part because of Helene’s effects.

SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Rescuers are scouring the mountains of western North Carolina for anyone still unaccounted for since Hurricane Helene’s remnants caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast. The death toll Tuesday reached 166 people. Residents in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina have been lining up for water and food and hunting for cellular signals after the storm deluged the region. In Augusta, Georgia, people waited in line for more than three hours to try to get water from one of five centers set up to serve more than 200,000 people. President Joe Biden plans to survey storm damage on Wednesday.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The death toll after Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction across the U.S. Southeast has reached at least 133. A crisis is unfolding in the mountains of western North Carolina, where water, food and other supplies are being airlifted into places cut off by mudslides and washed-out roads. Officials worry the death toll will rise further as searchers reach isolated areas. Nearly three dozen people have died in the county that includes the tourism hub of Asheville. The city’s water system has been severely damaged. Forecasters are keeping a close eye on Tropical Storm Kirk, which is expected to become a powerful Atlantic hurricane this week.

Hurricane Helene was big, strong and fast, making it a near-perfect storm to bring widespread death and destruction to the American South. The fast-moving Category 4 storm killed at least 64 people and potentially left thousands homeless throughout the southeastern United States as it hammered its way north. Florida, Georgia and both Carolinas all suffered multiple deaths. In Florida, most drownings were caused by storm surge. In Georgia and South Carolina, falling trees were the primary killers. In North Carolina, massive flooding has cutoff Asheville and the surrounding communities.

PERRY, Fla. (AP) — Massive rains brought by Hurricane Helene have left many people stranded or homeless as the cleanup begins from the monster tempest that killed at least 56 people. Helene has caused billions of dollars in destruction across a wide swath of the southeast U.S. More than 3 million customers were without power Saturday, and some face a continued threat of floods. Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams. Deaths from the storm have occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Days of torrential rain in North Carolina culminating with tropical downpours from what was Hurricane Helene have officials keeping a close eye on a major dam. More than a foot of rain has fallen across much of the region in the past several days. The two main interstates in the mountains have closed. Crews have conducted 100 swiftwater rescues as of Friday morning. Officials in Rutherford County were warning residents who live on nearly 30 roads below Lake Lure Dam to evacuate immediately because water was coming over the top of the dam. Winds gusted to 108 mph atop Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Massive Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region, bringing storm surge and high winds across the state’s Gulf Coast communities before ripping into southern Georgia. The storm remained at hurricane strength as it crossed into southern Georgia, before weakening into a tropical storm as it approached Atlanta early Friday. It left a wide swath of rising water, known as storm surge, across Florida’s Gulf Coast. First responders were rescuing stranded people from Tampa and St. Petersburg to Cedar Key and Perry, close to where Helene made landfall late Thursday.

CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Helene has made landfall in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warn of “catastrophic” flooding along the Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center says Helene came ashore Thursday evening in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Officials have forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Florida’s Apalachee Bay. Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extend far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states.

Parts of southeastern North Carolina have been deluged by another historic flood. Highways in Brunswick County remained underwater Tuesday, a day after about 18 inches of rain fell at nearby Carolina Beach in 12 hours. Emergency workers brought food and water to people as they waited for the flooding to recede. But the same area has seen four other floods of a lifetime in the past 25 years from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, unnamed storms in 2010 and 2015, and the benchmark flood with 30 inches of rain from Hurricane Florence in 2018. Meteorologists says warmer temperatures from climate change allows the air to hold more moisture and heavier rains to fall.