Emergency workers in Florida, Georgia and elsewhere rescued hundreds of people from boats, their homes and their cars as Hurricane Helene’s winds, rain and storm surge created havoc Friday on the Gulf of Mexico, in coastal neighborhoods and further inland.
The efforts of Florida’s 1,500 search-and-rescue personnel will be concentrated on securing and stabilizing affected communities through the weekend, said Kevin Guthrie, the state’s emergency operations director. The Category 4 storm made landfall on the Northwest Florida coast late Thursday, but it created flooding from storm surge all along the state’s Gulf Coast.
“As those sorts of rescue missions happen today, and continue, please do not go out and visit the impacted areas,” Guthrie said Friday morning at a news conference in the Florida capital of Tallahassee. “I beg of you, do not get in their way.”
The reported rescues ranged from life-threatening situations to people trapped in their homes by waist-high water and unable to flee on their own.