KEY POINTS
- Helene made landfall in Florida Thursday evening
- The Category 4 storm had 140 mph sustained winds
- Several deaths reported
Hurricane Helene weakened into a tropical storm as it pummeled Georgia and the Carolinas with lashing rains on Friday after leaving a path of destruction in northwest Florida that knocked power out for millions, stranded cars, swamped streets and felled trees.
Helene made landfall near Perry in the Big Bend region of Florida at about 11:10 p.m. Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane packing 140 mph winds, one of the strongest and most massive storms to strike the region in decades.
At least three deaths were blamed on Helene - one in Florida and two in Georgia.
Despite weakening as it moved into Georgia, Helene continued to produce hurricane-force winds of up to 90 mph, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami advised residents to continue to remain in shelters because of the "dangerous and life-threatening situation."
The heavy rains from Helene prompted flash flood warnings across Georgia and the western Carolinas.
As the sun came up Friday, Floridians ventured out to survey the damage wrought by Helene, the third hurricane to hit the Big Bend area since 2023.
More than 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida.
Roads resembled streams dotted with stranded cars and crisscrossed with downed trees and littered with debris.
One person was killed in Ybor City when a car was hit by a road sign.
"When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we're going to be waking up to a state where very likely there's been additional loss of life and certainly there's going to be loss of property," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night, the Associated Press reported.
In Georgia, more than a million homes were left in the dark on Thursday and about 1.6 million were without power in the Carolinas, according to the power tracking website poweroutage.us
Two people were killed in Georgia when a tornado hit a mobile home.
