Hurricane Helene: ‘Everywhere I look, devastation’ – Floridians reel from storm

A wall of seawater from the lethal Hurricane Helene pressured Briana Gagnier and her household to swim out of their residence on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Ms Gagnier, who lives in Holmes Seaside north of Sarasota, had stayed behind along with her household to guard their one-storey property, inserting sandbags at each door and transferring belongings on to tall furnishings to maintain them dry. They even used towels in a useless effort to stem the storm surge.

Then got here a loud bang. Their storage door broke open violently – caving in to the highly effective deluge of Helene. Water rapidly rose to their shoulders, forcing them to flee.

“Everybody was screaming and panicking,” she instructed the BBC. “No matter your worst thought of what this storm is – that’s what we’re seeing.”

She and her household ran throughout the road to a neighbour’s home, the place they ended up rescuing two aged folks whose residence had burst into flames.

She stated the blaze gave the impression to be linked to a golf cart battery.

Wanting round, she stated she noticed couches, chairs, a bench and even a automobile float by. The water was above her mailbox for a part of the night, she added.

“I simply cannot consider that is actual. The attention of the storm did not even hit us straight on,” stated Ms Gagnier. “This island is totally devastated. In every single place I look, devastation.”

She is one in every of many Floridians alongside the state’s Massive Bend Coast who’re reeling from the aftermath of Helene, which forecasters stated was unusually massive for a Gulf hurricane.

The lethal class 4 storm made landfall in Florida on Thursday night, earlier than weakening to a tropical storm because it churned inland via Georgia and into North Carolina.

There have been 11 identified fatalities from the storm in Georgia alone, with at the least two different folks killed in Florida and two extra in North Carolina.

4 tens of millions households had been with out electrical energy by Friday lunchtime throughout the south-eastern US.