Hurricane Helene leaves at least 64 dead, millions without power in United States | PHOTOS

“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbours, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.

Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm, with winds reaching 140 mph (225 kph). It quickly moved through Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp described the scene as looking “like a bomb went off,” with splintered homes and debris-covered highways.

After weakening, Helene continued to pour heavy rain on the Carolinas and Tennessee, leading to swollen creeks and rivers and putting pressure on dams. In western North Carolina, landslides and flooding closed Interstate 40 and other roads, isolating some areas. This caused delays for the East Tennessee State University football team, whose journey to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours.