Satellite images show scale of power outages after Hurricane Helene

Satellite images shows a path of darkness with power outages on September 28, 2024, two days after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida (Picture: NOAA)

Deadly Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction is reflected in a satellite image showing darkness where the system barreled through.

Before and after photos showed entire towns flooded and homes ripped apart by the hurricane.

The satellite image taken on Saturday – two days after Helene made landfall in Florida’s Gulf Coast and flooded areas of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia – depicts the vast area that lost power.

A wide swath of land through those states was black, compared to the rest of the US connected to power.

Satellite image shows Hurricane Helene approaching Florida on September 25, 2024, with communities still connected to power (Picture: NOAA)

‘The path from Helene can be seen from space with all of the power outages the day after it ripped through the Southeast,’ wrote the National Weather Service Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina on X (formerly Twitter) this week.

Reddit users from around the world were shocked at the before and after satellite images.

‘That is insane,’ wrote one user. ‘In case anyone from Spain (such as myself) is reading, that is as if a hurricane touched land in the coast of Galicia and made it all the way to Zaragoza, which is to say 3/4 the length of Spain.’

Another user noted that ‘the distance from the top of that dark area (Charlotte) to N. Florida is about 450 miles (725 km).’

An aerial view of flood damage by Hurricane Helene along the Swannanoa River on October 3, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina, shows building wrecked and vehicles scattered across muddy land (Picture: Getty Images)

‘Mother Nature says don’t eff with me,’ commented another user.

Helene cut power for millions of Americans between Tallahassee, Florida, and Damascus, Virginia.

Shortly after Helene made landfall, more than 1.2million customers in Florida lost power.

Flood waters inundate the main street after Hurricane Helene passed offshore on September 27, 2024, in Tarpon Springs, Florida (Picture: Getty Images)

Hundreds of thousands of outages continued as of Thursday afternoon. They included about 260,600 in South Carolina, 222,500 in North Carolina, 193,900 in Georgia, 8,400 in Florida and 65 in Alabama, according to poweroutage.us.

As of Thursday afternoon, the death toll was at least 215, with hundreds of others unaccounted for.

Helene was the first Category 4 storm on record to strike the Big Bend region since 1851.

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