At least 43 dead as Helene cuts through southeastern US

Tropical Depression Helene Brought life-threatening flooding to wide sections of the US southeast, where at least 43 people have been killed by a storm that swamped neighbourhoods, triggered mudslides, threatened dams and left more than 3.5 million homes and businesses without power.

Before moving north through Georgia and into Tennessee and the Carolinas, Helene hit Florida's Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, packing 225 kph winds.

Helene left behind a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbours, felled trees, submerged cars and flooded streets.

The storm had earlier been downgraded to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 55 kph, the National Hurricane Center said.

However Helene's heavy rains were still producing catastrophic flooding in many areas, with police and firefighters carrying out thousands of water rescues throughout the affected states.

More than 50 people were rescued from the roof of a hospital in Unicoi County, Tennessee, about 200 km northeast of Knoxville, state officials said, after flood waters swamped the rural community.

The extent of the damage in Florida began emerging after daybreak.

The city of Tampa posted on X that emergency personnel had completed 78 water rescues of residents and that many roads are impassable because of flooding. The Pasco County sheriff's office rescued more than 65 people overnight.

Officials had pleaded with residents in Helene's path to heed evacuation orders, with National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan describing the storm surge as "unsurvivable."

Some residents stayed put.

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Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said first responders were unable to answer several emergency calls from residents overnight due to the conditions. County authorities found at least five people dead.

Two others in Florida according to the state's Governor Ron DeSantis.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's office reported 15 storm-related fatalities in that state, while North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said there had been two deaths there.

At least 19 people died during the storm across South Carolina, the Charleston-based Post and Courier newspaper reported, citing local officials.

Helene was unusually large for a Gulf hurricane, forecasters said, though a storm's size is not the same as its strength, which is based on maximum sustained wind speeds.

A few hours before landfall, Helene's tropical-storm winds extended outward 500km, according to the National Hurricane Center. By comparison, Idalia, a major hurricane that struck Florida's Big Bend region last year, had tropical-storm winds extending 260 km about eight hours before it made landfall.