91 Confirmed Deaths Across Five States Hit By Helene; Biden Declares Disasters In Six [View all]

The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 100 people, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating. The storm killed at least 91 people, according to state and local officials in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Officials feared more bodies would be discovered.

“This is going to be a really complicated recovery in each of the five states” of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) administrator, Deanne Criswell. She noted that a 15ft storm surge hit Florida’s Taylor county, where Helene came ashore as a category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140mph (225km/h), and pointed out that areas of western North Carolina, where search and rescue operations are continuing, recorded 29in (74cm) of rain when the storm stalled over the region.

“This is historic flooding up in North Carolina,” Criswell told the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday. “I don’t know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides they are having right now.”

Kamala Harris said the Joe Biden administration had approved emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, “making resources and funding available to maximize our coordinated response efforts at the local, state and federal levels”. The White House said on Sunday that Biden intended to travel this week to communities affected by Hurricane Helene as soon as it would not disrupt the emergency response.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/29/hurricane-helene-historic-flooding-global-heating-fema