215 Dead, 900K Powerless, Biden Visits FL, GA: Hurricane Helene

Updated: Thursday, 4:47 P.M. ET

FLORIDA — As Southeastern states, including Florida, continue to recover from Hurricane Helene’s deadly trek across the region, President Joe Biden is again visiting areas devastated by flooding as the death toll soared with about half the victims in North Carolina.

On Thursday he made stops in Florida and Georgia, flying into Tallahassee and then made an aerial tour of affected areas in Perry, Florida in Taylor County before checking on damage in Valdosta, Georgia.

At least 215 people were killed in the storm, with hundreds still missing as of Thursday afternoon, the Associated Press reported. This makes Helene the second-deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland over the past 50 years. Helene falls just behind 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which left at least 1,833 in its wake.

• Also Read: Pinellas Hurricane Death Toll Increases To 12, Victims' Names Released

As of Wednesday afternoon, the death toll in Pinellas County from Hurricane Helene has increased to 12, officials said. Most of the victims appeared to have drowned in their homes in mandatory evacuation areas, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said.

Pinellas County was the site of most of Florida's deaths as barrier islands were swamped by storm surge.

North Carolina, where entire mountain communities were devastated by fast-moving floods caused by Helene, has seen the highest number of deaths so far at 95. There are 41 dead so far in South Carolina, 33 in Georgia, 20 in Florida, 11 in Tennessee and two in Virginia, CNN reported, with a smaller number of fatalities so far than AP.

One study suggests that Helene could cause thousands of deaths over decades, according to USA Today.

On average, tropical cyclones that hit the U.S. indirectly cause 7,000 to 11,000 more deaths than accounted for by officials, the study shows. Scientists say that since 1930, tropical storms have contributed to between 3.6 million and 5.2 million deaths.

These indirect causes for excess deaths includes diabetes, suicide, sudden infant death syndrome, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

About 900,000 people across the Southeast remain with power Thursday. South Carolina customers have the most outages with about 344,000, according to PowerOutage.us. In North Carolina, nearly 272,000 are without power, as well as about 256,000 in Georgia, about 21,000 in Virginia and about 18,000 in Florida, where the storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane.

Biden toured the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene, flying over the ravaged North and South Carolina Wednesday, NPR reported.

“You can see homes that are moved, clearly, from one side of the river, down the river to another side,” the president said. “Communities like Chimney Rock are reduced to piles of wood and debris.”

After learning up to 600 people were still unaccounted for, according to the BBC, Biden said, "God willing, they're alive. But there's no way to contact them again because of the lack of cell phone coverage."

The democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, both visited Georgia Wednesday, reports said.

Since Helene hit the state, Floridians have kept a wary eye on an area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms that moved from the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico.

Forecasters have dropped the chance of this area developing into an area of low pressure that could strengthen into a tropical depression or storm to 30 percent over the next seven days,the National Hurricane Center said. If it does develop, this would happen late this weekend or early next week, depending on how it interacts with a front.

Whether it becomes a tropical depression or not, locally heavy rains are expected over Mexico during the next few days and areas of the Florida peninsula next week, NHC said.