September 27, 2024
VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp said at least 11 people were killed and dozens are still trapped in homes damaged by Helene as it tore through Georgia early Friday morning. At least six others died in Florida and the Carolinas.
“Thank God we’re both alive to tell about it,” Rhonda Bell said after a towering oak tree outside her home in Valdosta, Georgia, smashed through the roof.
Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm arrived. One local news station showed a home that was overturned, and many communities established curfews.
More than 4 million homes and businesses were without power Friday morning in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. Multiple hospitals in southern Georgia were reportedly without power.
The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River on Florida’s Gulf Coast. That location was only about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage.
As the hurricane’s eye passed near Valdosta, a city of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people huddled early Friday in a darkened hotel lobby. As the wind howled outside, water dripped from light fixtures in the lobby dining area.
Fermin Herrera, 20, his wife and their 2-month-old daughter left their room on the top floor of the hotel, where they took shelter because they were concerned about trees falling on their Valdosta home.
“We heard some rumbling,” said Herrera, cradling the sleeping baby in a downstairs hallway.
Helene is the third storm to strike the city in just over a year. Tropical Storm Debby blacked out power to thousands in August, while Hurricane Idalia damaged an estimated 1,000 homes in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County a year ago.
