After making landfall in the southeastern US state of Florida as a powerful Hurricane Helene, it weakened to a tropical storm in a few hours on Friday, UNN reports citing The New York Times.
Details
"Helene swept over the U.S. state of Florida overnight as a powerful hurricane and brought strong winds and rain across the southeastern United States early Friday local time. The storm hit the Big Bend region of Florida with powerful gusts, causing massive outages and record storm surges before moving to Georgia and weakening to a tropical storm.
State officials said that the damage caused by Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, would not be fully visible until after dark. Late on Thursday night, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that authorities knew of one death related to the storm, but that there were likely to be others and that homes would be lost. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said that two people died in his state as a result of tornadoes, and one person died in North Carolina on Thursday.
According to fresh reports, Helene is approaching the northern part of South Carolina, with power outages and downed trees reported. Wind and rain are increasing around Lake Keowee and Lake Clemson, and residents are taking shelter to wait out the storm. In many rural communities, streams are overflowing and roads are flooded.
Helene crossed into Georgia early Friday with still-fierce wind speeds of 110 miles per hour and was expected to continue weakening. The storm’s effects were being felt across several states, with more than two million households left without power early Friday across Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina.
Dangers persisted in Florida, as much of the Gulf Coast was threatened by "catastrophic" storm surges as high as 20 feet above ground level forecast in some parts.
"Significant landslides" were predicted across the southern Appalachians through Friday. In Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., nearly 400 miles from Florida’s Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the storm could be one of the region’s "most significant weather events" in modern history.
President Biden signed off on emergency declarations for Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina before Helene made landfall. The decision made federal resources available to the states as they braced for impact.
#UPDATE Helene weakened to a tropical storm on Friday, hours after it made landfall as a powerful hurricane in the southeastern US state of Florida, US meteorologists said. pic.twitter.com/zOYfNGf6hn
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 27, 2024
Ураган Хелен категорії 4 вдарив по Флориді з вітрами до 225 км/год27.09.24, 07:58