Scientists had predicted a hyperactive hurricane season this year. Then, August and the first few weeks of September were eerily quiet in the Atlantic. Enter Hurricane Helene. The punishing force of the Category 4 storm has left millions of power customers without electricity in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. At least 20 people have been confirmed killed, and the damage assessments are just beginning. Strong winds and heavy rainfall are expected throughout the day across the Southeast and southern Appalachians, even after the storm was downgraded to a depression. Helene is the third hurricane to strike the Big Bend region of Florida in the past 13 months. Residents of Dixie County had just finished cleaning up the debris from last month’s Hurricane Debby just a few days ago, writes Chelsea Harvey. And many coastal residents are still rebuilding after 2023’s Hurricane Idalia walloped the area. “There’s a sense of trauma for those communities, a sense of demoralization,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a briefing today in Tallahassee. In an interview with Fox News, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said south Georgia communities saw very heavy damage, particularly from snapping trees falling onto houses and power lines across the densely forested region. “We know we still have people trapped in homes that we are trying to cut our way into right now,” he said. Helene is the ninth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in Florida since 1900, and the strongest to hit the Big Bend since record-keeping began in 1851, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. The Gulf Coast has now endured nine major hurricane landfalls from 2017 to 2024, according to NOAA data that retired federal scientist Jeff Masters cited in Yale Climate Connections. The climate link: The world’s oceans are heating up, acting as jet fuel for tropical cyclones. Last year set a new annual record for global ocean heat. Warmer waters are also increasing the heat and humidity in nearby land areas, posing additional risks to human health — especially during power outages in warm weather. While the oceans have been slowly warming for years as humans have released greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, scientists have been startled by the record acceleration. Last year’s temperatures were decades ahead of most experts’ predictions.
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