Widespread power outages, 7 dead, hundreds of houses flooded

At least seven Florida residents are dead. Almost 800,000 people are without power. Record flooding on the coast from Tampa to Big Bend. At least hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.

Hurricane Helene, which barreled ashore as a Category 4 hurricane shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday evening, devastated Florida’s Gulf Coast and was far from done with its destruction. The massive system, which was downgraded to a tropical depression Friday afternoon, flooded Georgia and dumped torrential rains that inundated communities across the Southeast. Rivers burst their banks around Asheville, North Carolina, and rain was expected to continue throughout the day.

Florida’s death toll rose to seven on Friday, with the Tampa Bay Times reporting that five people had died in Pinellas County, in addition to the two deaths previously reported elsewhere. At least 11 others were killed in Georgia and the toll was expected to rise in the Southeast.

It will take days to fully assess the damage, but news and social media reports recorded hundreds of miles of flooded roads and thousands of inundated homes and condos along much of the Gulf Coast – from Fort Myers Beach to Sarasota and north. Taylor County, where Helene made landfall in a sparsely populated section of the Big Bend, experienced its third named storm in just over a year.

“The initial reports we have received are that damage in the counties at the center of the storm has exceeded the damage from Idalia and Debby combined,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference Friday morning. “This is a lot of damage.”

The governor said “thousands” of people had been rescued by state and local search and rescue teams.

“All of the calls that any state officials responded to last night resulted in us being able to locate the person or people or pets and get them to safety,” he said.

That’s in contrast to Hurricane Ian, DeSantis said, when crews struggled to reach people who hadn’t left their homes. This storm killed 150 people in Florida.

On Friday morning, the number of power outages in Florida appeared to peak with just over 1.1 million customers with lights off. By 4 p.m. the number had fallen to just under 800,000. DeSantis told residents that an army of more than 30,000 road workers would begin repairing the power grid after Helene passed. Dozens of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well as four hospitals, were running on generator power Friday morning.

“There are people on the ground taking steps to fix this as quickly as possible,” he said.

Assessment of the damage

A slight run east might have spared Tallahassee, the state capital, from the most severe impacts of Helene and kept the state capital on the weaker side of Helene. Initial images show some fallen trees blocking roads and demolishing parts of houses, but no widespread destruction.

The strength of the storm surge broke records along the coast, from landfall south to the Tampa Bay area. In Cedar Key, NOAA gauges recorded water depths of more than 9 feet above sea level. Nearly 7 feet in Clearwater Beach, St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay.

Further south in Fort Myers, a rise of 5 feet was recorded. Naples reached 4 feet. These levels were high, but do not come close to the catastrophic levels observed during Hurricane Ian in 2022.

The water flooded towns and caused residents along the coast to call for help and rescue. The city of Venice in Sarasota County said it conducted at least 30 rescues Thursday before the water receded. Pasco County said it rescued at least 200 people overnight. In Pinellas County, there were 1,500 calls for rescue that could not be responded to, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told Axios.

In Manatee County, officials told the Bradenton Herald they received nearly 2,000 calls for help overnight as the storm hit. More than half of those calls came from residents and tourists on Anna Maria Island, according to Manatee County Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge.

Helene’s waves shattered houses and shattered windows, threw boats into the streets and lifted buildings from their foundations. In Clearwater, it left sand drifts up to two meters thick on beach roads.

In St. Petersburg and Bradenton, officials urged residents to conserve water — or even forgo flushing toilets or showers altogether — to avoid overwhelming sewage systems from stormwater flooding.

Aerial photos of places like Tampa showed entire neighborhoods on offshore islands with flooded streets.

“We are seeing significant damage in the Davis Islands and port areas. The National Guard has responded to assist in the rescue efforts,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor wrote on X.

Airports, universities and government buildings across the state were closed ahead of the storm. Major coastal bridges such as the Skyway in Tampa were closed as winds increased, and a fleet of bridge inspectors was en route to inspect them with a view to safely reopening Friday morning, the Florida Department of Transportation said. Some began reopening around noon on Friday.

By Friday afternoon, the tropical storm had finally slowed its hectic pace and remained as a tropical depression on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Wind speeds had fallen to 35 miles per hour, but the storm also caused widespread flooding across much of the Southeast. In Georgia and other states, over a million people were reportedly without power.

Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times staff writer Lawrence Mower contributed to this report.