160 Dead, 1.5M With No Power, 600 Missing In Southeast: Helene Fallout

Updated: 6:41 p.m. EST

FLORIDA — At least 160 people are confirmed dead across six states Tuesday morning as communities across the Southeast continue search and rescue efforts following powerful Hurricane Helene’s destructive trek across the region, CNN reported.

The number of confirmed dead doubled Tuesday in two states: North Carolina and Virginia. The latest county includes 73 dead in North Carolina, 36 in South Carolina, 25 in Georgia, 15 in Florida, nine in Tennessee and two in Virginia.

Officials say the death toll will likely continue to rise as hundreds remain unaccounted for — including more than 600 in Asheville, North Carolina, alone — in the wake of the storm, reports said.

The number of deaths could “be as many as 600 lives lost,” Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House Homeland security adviser, said during a Monday update on Helene, Aljazeera said.

"As bad as it is to see a restaurant hammered or see homes, you don't want loss of life. That is the one thing we can't rectify,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a Monday morning news conference in Steinhatchee, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Those dead in the Tampa Bay area include 79-year-old Marjorie Havard, who died after storm surge roared into her St. Pete Beach home. Her son told WTSP that she opted not to evacuate because she worried that she might be a burden on others because of her mobility issues.

A second-grade teacher at Ponce De Leon Elementary School, Donna Fagersten, 66, of Indian Rocks Beach, also died in the strong storm surge. Her best friend told Fox 13 that she rode out the storm with Fagersten and tried to save her life in the flooding.

In Dunedin, Patricia Mikos, 80, died in her home after water rushed inside and a possible electrical fire started. The Dunedin Fire Department was unable to get to her home immediately because of the rising water.

Days after Helene’s hit, power and other services are still offline Tuesday morning in the hardest-hit communities.

More than 1.5 million customers remain without power, according to PowerOutage.us. This includes about 618,000 customers in South Carolina, nearly 465,000 in Georgia, about 372,000 in North Carolina, nearly 73,000 in Virginia and nearly 68,000 in Florida.

Overwhelmed sewage systems overflowed during Helene. More than 8.5 million gallons of sewage from 10 overflows in the city of Tampa went into local water systems, mostly along the Hillsborough River and in south Tampa, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Across the bay in St. Petersburg, more than 407,000 gallons of untreated wastewater spilled during and after Helene.

Meanwhile, communities across the Southeast, including Florida, where Helene made landfall Thursday night, continue to clean up in the aftermath and to provide basic human needs to those affected the most.

Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island was 90 to 95 percent destroyed by the hurricane and was deemed a “catastrophic area” by the state’s CERT team, city officials said.

While the Pinellas County barrier islands are set to reopen to the public Tuesday at 4 p.m., officials warned that a number of neighborhoods don’t have power, water or sewage, and many roads are still impassable.

In Florida, funding assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency is available to individuals and businesses in 17 counties, according to a city of Tampa news release.

These counties include Charlotte, Citrus, Dixie, Franklin, Hernando, Hillsborough, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lee, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Sarasota, Taylor and Wakulla.

Those who suffered losses in these areas can begin applying for assistance by registering online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov, calling 1-800-621- 3362 or using the FEMA App.

Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.