South Carolina death toll from Helene climbs to 22, including a North Carolina man

Editor's note: This information was current as of Sept. 28, 2024. Here's the latest on Helene and the Upstate. For the latest coverage of Helene from across South Carolina, visit Hurricane Wire.

The uncertainty of what will happen is no more.

Hurricane Helene, quickly supercharged in the warm Gulf waters, tore through the Upstate at an alarming and unaccustomed pace, causing the type of widespread flooding, wind and tree damage — and deaths — not seen in a generation here.

Now comes a weekend digging out of the aftermath.

This means clearing houses of felled trees — which at this scale, only happens during ice storms — and restoring power to hundreds of thousands who are without electricity since the storm struck around sunrise Sept. 27 and brought historic floodwaters and winds at times more than 70 mph.

The Upstate's chief electricity provider, Duke Energy, said that heading into today, about 639,000 customers are without power. Add another 703,000 out of service in mostly western North Carolina and the number tops 1 million.

How long will it take to restore power? For the most part, the effort will be a matter of days — not hours — even with 11,000 workers from across 19 states and Canada.

"The damage we are seeing from Helene is historic," Duke spokesman Ryan Mosier told The Post and Courier. "There are trees down on nearly every yard and on many homes across the Upstate. Just trying to clear paths to the damaged equipment is a challenge. Folks who have spent 30-year careers at Duke Energy have never seen anything like this."

The rivers are rising.

And more details on the loss of life unfold.

The Post and Courier's reporters are following the aftermath of the storm. See something we should know? Send us an email.

North Carolina man one of 22 killed in South Carolina from Helene

5:58 p.m. Ralph Selle, 88, of Columbus, N.C., died Sept. 27 during flooding caused by Tropical Storm Helene.

Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said in a Sept. 28 release that Selle was in his vehicle at the intersection of Highway 14 and Earles Fort Road in Landrum. The vehicle "was completely submerged due to extensive flooding of the roadway," the release said.

Selle was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:53 p.m. 

—Sam R. Hall

Sixth death in Spartanburg County

3:45 p.m. The Spartanburg County coroner is reporting a sixth death in the county related to damage from Tropical Storm Helene.

Coroner Rusty Clevenger said in a Sept. 28 release that Jimmy Lee Wall, 68, of Parris Bridge Road in Chesnee was found dead late Sept. 27. 

Clevenger said Wall appeared to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to running a generator in his house.

"Upon initial entry to his residence by the fire department, there were extremely high levels of carbon monoxide recorded," the release said. "Our forensic exam today yielded more signs of the carbon monoxide poisoning, but the toxicology test will be the final deciding factor."

Toxicology results will take up to two weeks. 

"I take this opportunity to reiterate to the general public that at no time should you operate a generator or any machinery in any type enclosure that could cause carbon monoxide to overtake and render you unconscious," Clevenger said.

This death brings the statewide death toll from Tropical Storm Helene to 22. 

—Sam R. Hall

From Duncan to Anderson: 45 minute-drive to find a gas pump

2:30 p.m. More than 50 cars crawled along the right lane of northbound Greenville Street at 12:15 p.m. A coveted Shell station gas pump awaited, just outside the Anderson city center.

Flowing petroleum has become a rarity in the Upstate, as power outages have limited options for low-on-fuel drivers.

Waiting in her blue-grey Kia Sportage, Tara Brady, 50, had been on line for close to half an hour. She had braved the storm relatively unscathed, a power outage, a few downed trees on her property, but none hitting her home.

Her Saturday morning began in Duncan, 45 miles away. Brady's 84-year-old father-in-law stayed at her home the night before because his electricity in Anderson was also down. She was returning her relative to his home.

Along Interstate-85, she watched her fuel tick down as she scorned exits with long lines. She knew she had enough gas to take her father-in-law home, but not enough to return.

When she joined the Shell station line, her car had 30 miles to go. As she approached the front, she was approaching 24 miles left in the tank.

It was almost Brady’s turn when Brad Bell walked up to her car. He was wearing a loosely-fitting, partially buttoned collared shirt. Bell said he was worse off than Brady. His car was below empty. He later explained that he was turning his ignition off every time he stopped.

Brady was ready to let Bell hop in front of her, when another woman in line got wind that he was slipping ahead. She would not allow it.

“Southern hospitality my ass, I’m from Jersey!” she yelled.

Little did she know, Brady was from New York. Perhaps sensing a confrontation, she pulled ahead.

Bell would need to wait.

- Mitchell Black

Hour-long waits for gas, long lines at fast food chains in Spartanburg

2 p.m. Vivian Foster walked out of a convenience store on Highway 9 she had stopped at earlier on Sept. 28 when she was told a small bag of charcoal would cost $23.99.

“That’s definitely price-gouging to me because I don’t think it would have been that much if we wasn’t in this predicament,” she said. “I put down everything I had and left.”

She ended up going to a QT on Highway 9 and waited an hour in line to get gas before hitting up the Hardees on Fernwood Drive and East Main Street, one of a handful of fast food spots still open in the city.

“So now I’m just trying to get my family a little something to munch on for later today, and I think we’ll just cook on the grill this evening,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll make it through.”

Foster said that while Hardees was popular for breakfast, she’d never seen such a long lunch line.

“I think they’ve seen way more business in this last day or two than they probably have for several months,” she added

Like tens of thousands of others in Spartanburg County, Foster’s power was out at her house. She felt fortunate that no trees had fallen her yard, although the same couldn’t be said for the rest of her neighborhood.

“I think this has been an eye-opener,” she said. “This is not something that we’ve experienced before, even with snow and ice storms. So when they say a hurricane’s coming, we get a few winds, a little rain or whatnot, but nothing this bad to where it’s taken out so many of our trees and powerlines. The damage that it’s done, nobody anticipated that it would be this devastating.”

- Christian Boschult

Fallen trees render Woodside Avenue homes 'unlivable'

2 p.m. Around 6 a.m. Friday morning, 63-year-old Jose Mora was jolted from his sleep in his home on Woodside Avenue by the sound of a crash that split the air.

Mora, a roofer from Costa Rica, immediately woke his brother, three nephews and two children who were staying in the house with him. They ran outside to their front porch to find two giant oak trees in his next door neighbor’s yard had fallen: one across their driveway and into their yard, blocking their cars and crushing their playset, and the other right into their neighbor’s home.

Mora was terrified. He and the others ran over to the house where four people lived to check on them. The tree had fallen directly through the walls and roof, crushing the house like it was made of cardboard.

“I was so scared,” he said. “And the sound of the wind and rain – it was so loud.”

Miraculously his neighbors were unharmed. The same could not be said for their home, however; the roof and chimney were completely crushed. The home was unlivable.

The neighbors packed up their belongings into two cars and left, Mora did not know where. Mora sent videos of the fallen trees to his landlord. His home was mostly undamaged: a small leak in the roof that he fixed himself, some boxing on the front porch that was smashed. But the trees were blocking the driveway and sprawled across the front yard.

The landlord promised to send help, but warned he was overwhelmed by the storm. Mora and his family decided to work on the problem themselves. They used chainsaws to cut off limbs and stacked some of the wood in the front yard. But there was not much they could do about the trunk that blocked the driveway.

Mora said he does not have anywhere else to go in Greenville. Like many others, they lost power around 4 a.m. Friday and do not know when it will be back.

“We were scared, but we’re ok now,” he said. “We’re going to stay here.”

- Macon Atkinson

Restoring power a slow process with 1M still out statewide

1:35 p.m. Restoring power is going to take several days, and while progress is being made, it is slow.

More than 1 million customers are still without power across South Carolina, with just shy of 200,000 being restored in the last 24 hours.

In the Upstate, progress is slower. Around 4,000 customers have been restored, with 636,321 still without power across six counties.

Here are the latest Upstate outage numbers by county, according to available online outage numbers:

• Greenville – 258,726
• Spartanburg – 173,297
• Anderson – 100,679
• Pickens – 44,519
• Oconee – 32,222
• Laurens – 26,878

These include customers of Duke and local electric co-ops.

—Sam R. Hall

Overbrook digs out from wreckage, Fork & Plough serves community

1:30 p.m. Kelan Lavelle watched as a crew took down branch after branch of an oak tree in his neighbor’s yard. The massive tree began leaning toward his house in the historic Overbrook neighborhood Friday morning. It continues to lean toward vet more precariously as the day wore on.

Lavelle called around 30 tree service companies before finally finding one that could help.

It was a waiting game, but it seemed like they had staved off what could have been a devastating situation.

Meanwhile, community restaurant Fork & Plough set up in its parking lot to serve food.

- Lillia Callum-Penso

Greenville County schools to stay closed Monday and Tuesday

12:30 p.m. - Greenville County Schools announced that classes would be canceled on Monday and Tuesday because of widespread power outages and lack of internet access.

E-learning isn't an option, so these days will have to be made up because students and teachers cannot do their work. Gov. Henry McMaster can decide to forgives those days.

The district said it would make an announcement about Wednesday’s classes in the coming days.

—Anna Mitchell

Downtown Greenville reopening in spurts

11:42 p.m. Karen and Carl Sobocinski were up early clearing an 80 foot oak tree from their front yard on North Main Street.

“Thankfully, it didn’t squash the house,” Karen Sobocinski said.

She said they were up during the storm and heard about eight booms around the neighborhood during the Sept. 27 storm. The giant tree in their own yard, took out part of the fence and lay across North Main Street after the storm.

Four sets of cones blocked portions of North Main Street still on the morning of Sept. 28. Cars drove around them, sum at high speed.

Karen Sobocinski said that all of their Table 301 restaurants were open today but about half of the employees are stuck at home because of storm damage. The couple said they are going to try to clean up as much as they can and will head to the Clemson game later today.

Up the street, Joe Delaney was on his roof with a chainsaw. He and his son, Jay, were home at about 7 AM September 27 when their 90 foot front-yard oak tree crashed down on the home’s roof.

On Saturday morning, Alyssa Delaney, was standing on the sidewalk in her front yard, chatting with neighbor Dick Mitchell, an artist who lives on West Avenue in the North Main community.

“ I have some of his paintings!” Alyssa Delaney said.

“That’s one of the nice things about storms. You meet your neighbors, “ Dick Mitchell said.

Mitchell paused in front of the Delaney house in the idle of his half mile walk to the Greenville Fire Department station at the end of N. Main St. Powerlines surrounded his house and they were not able to get their cars out. He wanted to report it. He was wearing his Clemson T-shirt, his alma mater from 1958 when he got his architectural degree there.

“ I guess I’ll miss today’s game,” Mitchell said.

No one on the street had power.

—Anna Mitchell

Greenville pleads people to stay off roads and out of city parks

Noon - With most of the city without power, few functioning traffic signals and crews trying to clean up parks, Greenville is asking people to stay off the roads if possible and not to venture into city parks.

The weather is otherwise prime for being outdoors, but the city says that as its crews work throughout the day until dark, they can't run equipment if people are in the parks.

At most signaled intersections, drivers will have to adjust to unfamiliar rules. When they're not working, those intersections become four-way stops.

With the aftermath draining resources, firefighters are now responding to wrecks as a result of failure to follow traffic laws.

—Macon Atkinson

The Saluda River crested, but not as high as feared in Anderson and Pickens

10 a.m. Ann Walling packed a suitcase Thursday night, preparing for the swelling Saluda River that might force her to escape.

Rising waters crept into the 79-year-old’s backyard, about 15 feet beyond the flag pole marking a past flood, but still far enough from her home that she and her husband stayed put.

Some of her Shady Acre Circle neighbors weren’t as lucky. The clayish blown water rose to doorways and pooled in backyards, forcing emergency workers to rescue at least one neighbor from their home.

For all the wreckage Helene brought, some officials in a relative sense woke up relieved.

Anderson County Emergency Services Director Josh Hawkins said he slept through the night. His department didn’t receive any emergency calls Friday evening, and the Saluda River did not rise as high as he feared. Anderson county’s Helene death toll remained at two.

Though Helene gave way to a balmy early-fall blue sky day in the Upstate, the effects of the storm remain.

Much of the Upstate is still without power, as cars approach major intersections nervously as if drivers are looking each way to avoid a T-Bone collision. Storefronts that would be preparing for a weekend rush were left with a vacant stare.

Downed trees are blocking roads and driveways, causing Greenville Middle School math teacher Allison Berman to worry she might miss school Monday. The National Guard is assisting Anderson County with its clearing effort.

Walling was waiting to see what the waters would reveal once they receded from her yard.

She gestured to a bird feeder left by the last flood.

“It is so strange to see water in a place it doesn’t belong,” she said.

—Mitchell Black

Anderson man mourns death of beloved partner

6 a.m. David Shaw awoke in the early morning of Sept. 27 to the world coming undone.

Shattering glass. The floor rocking beneath him. The crunch and scream of twisting metal and the slashing branches that twisted it.

The churning, black chaos of Helene had punctured the walls of his Anderson mobile home and now raged inside his bedroom.

He screamed her name as he leapt up from bed: Christine.

Shaw's long-time partner, Christine Schmeiske, was also in the trailer when a massive oak crumpled its ceiling and cut into its interior.

But Shaw couldn't reach her. He was trapped, his only path forward was up.

Groping in the darkness and branches, he climbed the tree to the roof. From there, he climbed down another limb to the road, where neighbors offered help, and a pair of shoes to cover his bare feet.

It was only in the wake of the chaos that Shaw learned Schmeiske, 55, had been killed when the tree struck the home they had shared for roughly a decade.

"She was my everything," he said, tears filling his eyes as he stood in front of the remnants of his trailer the afternoon of Sept. 27, hours after Helene had torn through the Upstate. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

—Conor Hughes

Helene's water dump in Upstate pushes rivers and streams to brink

5 a.m. The Saluda River is still rising, and Anderson County's 33-year-old emergency management director is worried.

Josh Hawkins said his emergency response teams were already dealing with the challenges of flash floods, 71-mph winds, downed lines, trees blocking roads, oxygen patients needing emergency shelter and communication breakdowns in a county where more than 90 percent of residents have lost power. It's the worst crisis he said he has ever seen in the county where he grew up.

At 5 p.m. Sept. 27, Hawkins added water rescue to the list. As he spoke with a Post and Courier reporter, his swift-water rescue team was helping an elderly couple get out of their riverfront house on the Saluda. Water encircled the home, and the folks couldn't get out.

"We are recommending if you're on the water's edge to find another place to reside," Hawkins said.

In other words: We aren't going to make you evacuate, but we strongly suggest you leave.

—Anna Mitchell