Cedar Key: Rescuers struggled on Saturday with washed-out bridges and debris-strewn roads in the search for survivors of devastating Storm Helene, which killed at least 63 people across five states and caused massive power outages.
Helene slammed into Florida Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane and surged north, gradually weakening but leaving in its wake toppled trees, downed power lines and mudslide-wrecked homes.
Federal emergencies were declared in six states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — with more than 800 personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) deployed.
Now classified as a “post-tropical cyclone,” the remnants of the storm are expected to continue inundating the Ohio Valley and central Appalachians through Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
In affected communities across the eastern coast and midwest, storm victims and volunteers toting trash bags, mops and hammers tried to repair what they could and clean up the rest.
“There’s only a couple businesses open. They have limited supply. So I’m just worried about families that have kids and stuff like that, getting somewhere to stay and have something to eat,” said Steven Mauro, a resident of Valdosta, Georgia.
At least 24 people died in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, 10 in North Carolina and one in Virginia, according to local authorities and media tallied by AFP.
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.”
“Main issue is the electrical power,” said another man from Valdosta who declined to give his name. “With the whole town down, the traffic lights are out. So driving around... people should just stay home.”
More than 2.6 million customers were still without electricity across 10 states from Florida in the southeast to Indiana in the midwest as of early Sunday morning, according to tracker poweroutage.us.
Helene blew into Florida’s northern Gulf shore with powerful winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour. Even as it weakened into a post-tropical cyclone, it has wreaked havoc.
Record levels of flooding threatened to break 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, in western North Carolina. Governor Ray Cooper called it “one of the worst storms in modern history” to hit his state.
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 off Florida’s Gulf Coast, several pastel-colored wooden homes were destroyed by 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 other hurricanes in the past year.
In South Carolina, the dead included two firefighters, officials said.
Georgia’s 17 deaths included an emergency responder, according to state officials.
In the Tennessee town of Erwin, more than 50 patients and staff trapped on a hospital roof by surging floodwaters had to be rescued by helicopters.
In a statement Saturday, President Joe Biden called Helene’s devastation “overwhelming.”
Biden was briefed by FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall on “the tragic loss of life across the region,” the White House said.
Criswell, who went to Florida on Saturday to survey damage, will visit Georgia on Sunday and North Carolina on Monday.
September has been an unusually wet month around the world, with scientists linking some extreme weather events to human-caused global warming.
The North Atlantic hurricane season runs from the beginning of June to the end of November, with most of the severe storms historically forming around the end of August or beginning of September.
Forecasters are carefully watching two more named storm systems expected next week: Joyce and Hurricane Isaac.
Isaac is expected to weaken into a powerful post-tropical cyclone by Sunday night or early Monday, while Joyce is expected to be a tropical storm for a couple more days, according to the NHC.
More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
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More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Helene slammed into Florida Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane and surged north
- Federal emergencies were declared in six states
Ex-CNN journalist Don Lemon pleads not guilty to Minnesota protest charges
- A magistrate judge ordered Lemon released to await trial, after a night in custody following his arrest late on Thursday by the FBI
LOS ANGELES: Former CNN news anchor Don Lemon entered a not guilty plea on Friday to federal charges over his role covering a protest at a Minnesota church against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the Republican administration’s latest move against a critic.
Lemon, now an independent journalist, livestreamed a protest against Trump’s deployment of thousands of armed immigration agents into Democratic-governed Minnesota’s biggest cities. The protest disrupted a January 18 service at Cities Church in St. Paul.
A magistrate judge ordered Lemon released to await trial, after a night in custody following his arrest late on Thursday by the FBI.
Dressed in a cream-colored double-breasted suit, Lemon spoke only to say “yes, your honor” when asked if he understood the proceedings. One of his attorneys said that he pleaded not guilty.
“He is committed to fighting this. He’s not going anywhere,” said Lemon attorney Marilyn Bednarski.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon told reporters after the hearing. “I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court.”
A grand jury indictment charged Lemon, who is Black, with conspiring to deprive others of their civil rights and violating a law that has been used to crack down on demonstrations at abortion clinics but also forbids obstructing access to houses of worship. Six other people who were at the protest, including another journalist, are facing the same charges.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Minneapolis and other US cities on Friday to denounce an immigration crackdown in which federal agents fatally shot two US citizens, sparking one of the most serious political crises Trump has faced.
PRESS ADVOCATES ALARMED
Free press advocates voiced alarm over the arrests. Actor and activist Jane Fonda went to show support for Lemon, telling journalists the president was violating the Constitution. “They arrested the wrong Don,” Fonda said.
Trump, who has castigated the protesters in Minnesota, blamed the Cities Church protest on “agitators and insurrectionists” who he said wanted to intimidate Christian worshippers.
Organizers told Lemon they focused on the church because they believed a pastor there was also a senior US Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee.
More than a week ago, the government arrested three people it said organized the protests. But the magistrate judge in St. Paul who approved those arrests ruled that, without a grand jury indictment, there was not probable cause to issue arrest warrants for Lemon and several others the Justice Department also wanted to prosecute.
“This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand,” Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s lawyer, said in a statement, invoking constitutional free speech protections.
In the livestream archived on his YouTube channel, Lemon can be seen meeting with and interviewing the activists before they go to the church, and later chronicling the disruption inside, interviewing congregants, protesters and a pastor, who asks Lemon and the protesters to leave.
Independent local journalist Georgia Fort and two others who had been at the church were also arrested and charged with the same crimes.
US Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster on Friday ordered Fort’s release, denying prosecutors’ request to hold her in custody, according to court documents.
TRUMP CRITICS TARGETED
The Justice Department over the past year has tried to prosecute a succession of Trump’s critics and perceived enemies. Its charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who both led investigations into Trump, were thrown out by a judge.
Lemon spent 17 years at CNN, becoming one of its most recognizable personalities, and frequently criticizes Trump in his YouTube broadcasts. Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023 after making sexist on-air comments for which he later apologized.
Trump frequently lambastes journalists and news outlets, going further than his predecessors by sometimes suing them for damages or stripping them of access-granting credentials.
FBI agents with a search warrant seized laptops and other devices this month from the home of a Washington Post reporter who has covered Trump’s firing of federal workers, saying it was investigating leaks of government secrets.
Press advocates called the FBI search involving the Post reporter and the arrests of Lemon and Fort an escalation of attacks on press freedom.
“Reporting on protests isn’t a crime,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. Jaffer called the arrests alarming, and said Trump sought “to tighten the vise around press freedom.”
Trump has said his attacks are because he is tired of “fake news” and hostile coverage.
Legal experts said they were unaware of any US precedent for journalists being arrested after the fact, or under the two laws used to charge Lemon and Fort. They include the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 measure that prevents obstructing access to abortion clinics and places of worship.
