Bombay Durpun - Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace

At least 22 people died in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, two in North Carolina and one in Virginia, according to updated reports from local authorities tallied by AFP.

Helene slammed into Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane and surged north, gradually weakening but leaving a path of rare devastation.

Repair crews were already at work Saturday, and the National Weather Service said conditions would "continue to improve today following the catastrophic flooding over the past two days."

But it warned of possible "long-duration power outages."

Nearly three million customers were still without electricity across 10 states from Florida in the southeast to Indiana and Ohio in the midwest as of mid-afternoon Saturday, according to tracker poweroutage.us.

- 'It breaks my heart' -

Helene originally slammed into Florida's northern Gulf shore with powerful winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour. Even as a weakened post-tropical cyclone, it has wreaked havoc.

Record levels of flooding had threatened to breach several dams, but Tennessee emergency officials said Saturday that the Nolichucky Dam -- which had been close to breaching -- was no longer in danger of giving way and people downriver could return home.

Massive flooding was reported in Asheville, a city in western North Carolina. Governor Ray Cooper called it "one of the worst storms in modern history" to hit his state.

Some residents in South Carolina -- a state that is no stranger to hurricanes -- said Helene was the worst storm to hit in 40 years.

There were reports of remote towns in the Carolina mountains without power or cell service, their roads washed away or buried by mudslides.

In Cedar Key, an island city of 700 people just off Florida's northwest coast, the full destructive force of the hurricane was on view.

Several pastel-colored wooden homes were destroyed, victims of record storm surges and ferocious winds.

"I've lived here my whole life, and it breaks my heart to see it. We've not really been able to catch a break," said Gabe Doty, a Cedar Key official, referring to two earlier hurricanes in the past year.

- 'Gut punch' -

In South Carolina the dead included two firefighters, officials said.

Georgia's 17 deaths included an emergency responder, according to state officials.

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida said the damage from Helene exceeded that of hurricanes Idalia and Debby, which both hit the same region southeast of Tallahassee in the last 13 months.

"It's a real gut punch to those communities," DeSantis told Fox News.

On affluent Anna Maria Island, south of the Florida city of Tampa, nearly every ground-level home was flooded, and a coastal road was buried in several feet of sand, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

And in the Tennessee town of Erwin, a dramatic rescue operation unfolded, as more than 50 patients and staff trapped on a hospital roof by surging floodwaters had to be rescued by helicopters.

Remnants of the weakened storm were dumping water Saturday over the lower midwest.

- 'Overwhelming' damage -

In a statement Saturday, President Joe Biden called Helene's devastation "overwhelming."

He said he was deploying additional response personnel, and he sent Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, to Florida on Saturday to survey damage. FEMA now has more than 800 people in the storm-hit states.

September has been an unusually wet month around the world, with scientists linking some extreme weather events to human-caused global warming.

R.Altobelli--BD