At least five dead as hurricane Helene rips through southeastern US

At least five people have been killed after hurricane Helene came ashore in Florida overnight, causing widespread power outages and evacuations.

One person was killed after a sign fell on their car in Florida, and another two were killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia. The other deaths, in North and South Carolina, were reportedly caused by trees that toppled onto homes.

Governors in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, and both North and South Carolina have declared emergencies to deal with the storm, thought to be one of the largest hurricanes to hit ever the Gulf Coast.

“This is one of the biggest storms we’ve ever had,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said.

The hurricane has caused widespread destruction across the southeastern US, with videos posted on social media showing multiple houses destroyed.

According to the US National Hurricane Centre, Helene, which made landfall in Florida as a category four storm with 225 km/h, has since weakened to a tropical storm over Georgia with maximum sustained winds of 112 km(h early on Friday, the National Hurricane Centre said.

Forecasters had warned about a “nightmare” storm surge, along with dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern US.

Power outages aplenty

As of Friday morning nearly 3.2 million people were without power across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.

In the city of Valdosta in Georgia, dozens of people huddled in the darkened lobby after midnight Friday as winds whistled and howled outside a hotel in the city of 55,000.

Fermin Herrera, 20, his wife, and their two-month-old daughter left their room on the hotel’s top floor, where they took shelter because they were concerned about trees falling on their Valdosta home.

Helene is the third storm to strike the city in just over a year. In August, tropical storm Debby blacked out power to thousands, while hurricane Idalia damaged an estimated 1,000 homes in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County a year ago.

“I feel like a lot of us know what to do now,” Herrera said. “We’ve seen some storms and grown some thicker skins.”

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began in June.