The most shocking videos of Hurricane Helene and the destruction it caused

With heavy rain and sustained winds of about 225 kilometers, Hurricane Helene made landfall this Thursday night in the state of Florida, USA. Along with the category 4 storm, of the five that exist, also the destruction came which in the last few hours were shared by users on social networks. One fatality was also confirmed, as indicated this Friday morning by Governor Ronald Dion DeSantis.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Helene reached the coast at approximately 11:10 (03:10 GMT on Friday) in the eastern United States, near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the area. of Florida’s Big Bend.

Helene’s presence in the gulf caused the issuing hurricane and flash flood warnings that extended into northern Georgia and western North Carolina.

Before it made landfall, Helene’s intense winds had already caused the interruption of the electricity supply in almost 900,000 homes and businesses in Florida, where extensive damage was also recorded, according to the site poweroutage.us, specialized in tracking suspensions in the service. Against this backdrop, the governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia declared a state of emergency in their districts.

One of the first videos that went viral It was that of a man, on the outskirts of a house, who seemed surprised by what he had before his eyes: a storm, accompanied by a powerful wind, that bent the palm trees and the remains of debris floating in the waters.

In parallel, federal authorities organized search and rescue teams. The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee forecast storm surges of up to 6 meters (20 feet) and warned that they could be particularly “catastrophic and impossible to survive” in Apalachee Bay.

Other film material that circulated, captured by a home security camera, showed how the waters, in the form of waves, swept away the windows and violently entered the property.

On the other hand, from a vehicle the moment in which part of a house rolled down a roadpushed by the wind.

This Thursday morning, Helene was about 515 km southwest of Tampa and moving north at 19 kilometers per hour with maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h. Forecasters estimated that it would become a Category 3 hurricane or higher, which meant winds of 177 km/h.

Although Helene is likely to weaken as it moves inland, its “rapid moving speed will allow strong, damaging winds, especially gusts, to penetrate far into land across the southeastern United States,” including the southern Appalachian Mountains, warned the US National Hurricane Center.

Helene also flooded parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and downing trees along the coast and near the resort of Cancun.

The storm formed on Tuesday in the Caribbean Sea. In Cuba, the government preemptively cut off electricity in some towns, while waves of up to 5 meters hit Cortés Bay. In the Cayman Islands, schools closed and residents pumped water from flooded homes.