Tropical Storm Helena brought life-threatening flooding to South and North Carolina after it swept through Florida and Georgia overnight as a major hurricane, killing at least 25 people, flooding streets and leaving more than 4 million homes and businesses without power.
Four people were killed by falling trees in Greenville County, bringing the death toll to 13 in South Carolina.
In Georgia, 11 people died, said the spokesman for the governor, Garrison Douglas, who could not give more details about the tragedy.
In the state's southernmost city, Valdosta, 115 buildings were badly damaged with many people trapped inside.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said several hospitals in southern Georgia are without power after Hurricane Helena knocked out power and generators. Kemp said trees were down in the eastern part of the state.
"There are still people trapped in homes that we are currently trying to reach. We already have many people on the ground. We are calling in additional National Guard," Kemp told Fox News.
Kemp said wind damage was less severe in metro Atlanta.
One person was killed in Florida when a traffic sign fell on a car and another after a tree fell on a house in the region where Hurricane Helene made landfall, bringing the death toll to at least six, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis said.
"I pray that this is it, but I also know that this is a dangerous storm," DeSantis said at a news conference in Tallahassee.
Neighborhoods were flooded, and more than four million homes and businesses were left without power.
The category four storm made landfall around midnight, leaving overturned boats in harbors, downed trees and flooded streets, as seen in photos and videos from Tampa, Naples and St. Petersburg on the Florida coast.
Helena is the 14th strongest hurricane to hit the US on record and the seventh strongest in Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
It reached Florida with sustained winds of 225 mph, weakening to 110 mph after moving north over Georgia. In some places, up to 50 cm of rain is forecast.
The Coast Guard rescued a man and a dog who were in a boat off Santibale Island in Florida.
As dawn broke, the NHC announced that Helena had weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm. "Weakening is expected to continue, and Helena is expected to reach a minimum this afternoon or tonight," it added.
However, life-threatening storm surges, winds and heavy rain continued, the NHC said.
Residents were asked to evacuate some places, and everyone in the region to seek shelter.
"An unsurvivable scenario is going to play out" in the coastal area, NHC director Michael Brennan said, predicting surges that could destroy buildings and carry cars.
In Taylor County, the sheriff's department wrote on social media that residents who chose not to evacuate should write their names and dates of birth on their arms in permanent ink "so you can be identified and family notified."
Some residents remained stubborn.
"We have orders, but I'm going to stay here in the house," state ferry operator Ken Wood, 58, told Reuters from coastal Dunedin, Florida, where he planned to ride out the storm with his 16-year-old cat Andi.
Officials in Pinellas County, which sits on a peninsula surrounded by Tampa Bay and the low-lying Gulf of Mexico, warned that the storm's impact could be as strong as last year's Hurricane Idalia, which flooded 1.500 homes. Video footage shows swampy roads next to the beach and water rising above the boat dock.
Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and St. Petersburg suspended operations Thursday. Rain fell in parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Cotton and walnut crops in Georgia can suffer damage in the middle of the harvest season.
Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re said preliminary private insurance losses could reach $3 billion to $6 billion, with additional losses from federal insurance programs approaching a potential $1 billion level.
Energy facilities along the US Gulf Coast have scaled back operations and evacuated some production sites.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Diane Criswell said at a White House briefing that she would travel to Florida to assess the damage.
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