Massive Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region late Thursday, bringing storm surge and high winds across the state’s Gulf Coast communities before ripping into southern Georgia.
Helene, downgraded to a tropical storm, is about 60 miles southwest of Clemson, S.C. and moving north, according to the National Hurricane Center. Maximum sustained winds are decreasing to near 60 mph.
Boats were piled up Friday on a marina in Gulfport, Fla. — some just smashed up fiberglass remains.Streets in the community located on the Gulf of Mexico in the St. Petersburg, Fla. area were littered with mud, trash and tree limbs left by water that had receded by daybreak Friday.
Other streets were still covered in water several inches high. Photos posted by residents showed a pizzeria whose front window was smashed in by storm surge.
- Power outages: Nearly 4 million homes and businesses are still without power in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.
- Rain and flooding: Helene is producing rain accumulations of 6 to 12 inches, with isolated totals around 20 inches in some parts of the southeast, the Hurricane Center says. That could be lead to catastrophic flash and urban flooding as far north as the Appalachian mountains.
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