Rescue teams across the southeastern U.S. and southern Appalachia scrambled to respond to the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene, as more than 3 million homes and businesses were without any power Saturday amid a continued threat of floods.
Moody’s Analytics said Friday it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage from the hurricane, which by late Friday had been downgraded to a tropical storm.
At least 52 people were killed in five states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, the Associated Press reported . The dead included three firefighters, a mother and her 1-month-old twins and an 89-year-old woman who was struck by a tree that hit her house.
The White House said it had approved emergency declaration requests from the governors of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, giving the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, authorization to provide emergency response assistance. Some 1,500 federal disaster response personnel had also been deployed to the region.