Hurricane Helene Killed 49 in South Carolina’s Upstate Region as Costs of Damage and Response Exceed $370 Million

High winds devastated trees and homes and, possibly, stirred some residents’ complacency about climate change.

South Carolina’s upstate residents are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, the storm that devastated areas of the southeast far inland, with a force that many in the area had never seen before.

Western North Carolina was hit the hardest, with flooding and winds that tore apart infrastructure and destroyed homes and businesses in Asheville and other nearby communities in ways that will take years to recover.

But upstate South Carolina was also heavily damaged, particularly from high winds that blew trees into homes and significantly degraded the region’s lush tree canopies. 

In South Carolina, as of Oct. 9, there were 49 storm-related fatalities, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Aiken, Spartanburg and Greenville were the areas hit the hardest. 

“Cleanup efforts are still in progress across impacted areas following Hurricane Helene,” said a spokesperson for South Carolina Emergency Management Division (SCEMD) in an email statement. “As of Dec. 4, 2024, the estimate for public agency damage, debris removal, and response costs currently exceeds $370 million, and that figure will increase as debris operations continue and repair estimates are developed. This does not include insured damage or private sector, agricultural or residential damage estimates.” 

SCEMD said it will continue to assess the storm’s impact and coordinate support with state, local and federal partners. 

Kevin O’Dell, public information director for the South Carolina Office of Resilience, said recovery for the area will be a “long-term process” and the timeline will depend on the funding from Congress.

“Most of the conversations that we had pertaining to home damage were less about flooding, which is what the majority of the damages have been in previous disasters, and indeed, more things like clearing debris, like trees off of properties, or in some cases, trees actually falling on people’s homes and severely damaging them,” O’Dell said. “So it is definitely a different nature of damage than what we’ve seen in the past.” 

Residents of Greer, South Carolina, a town in Spartanburg County, said Hurricane Helene felt “apocalyptic.”

Early in the morning on Sept. 29, Hurricane Helene hit Ward and Saundra Hammond’s neighborhood in Greer, about 105 miles northwest of Columbia, with a force they thought the area’s infrastructure was unprepared for. 

Early that morning, a tree fell into their family home. They said it took over two weeks for the tree to be removed and the damage to the roof to be repaired. But they said the work is not yet done.

“One hit our neighbor’s house with some damage, and then we had the big one on ours, which was going all the way over across the house, back to front and damage on the front and the back,” Ward Hammond, a 64-year-old IT manager, said. “They found it was too heavy and had to get a crane in, and when it moved, it did more damage. They finally got that removed, but we had a hole in the roof for about two weeks, or longer.”

At the time of the interview, on Nov. 11, the hole in the roof was still not completely repaired. Ward Hammond said he is thankful that it hasn’t rained since then. 

Waking up the morning after the storm, the couple found their neighborhood to have significant damage. Saundra Hammond, a 62-year-old second-grade teacher, said that every single house on their side of the street had lost a tree in its yard, most of which fell onto homes.

“It is just devastating, because (the neighbors) had a huge old oak tree that fell right into almost the center of their house and wiped out their kitchen and everything, and so their contractor told them that they could expect to be out of the house for nine months,” she said.

Saundra Hammond also said they only had one way in and out of the neighborhood, so the fire department had to come and remove debris the day of the storm.

“It was just a cut and push to the side, and then the fire chief followed them through and checked on each house and said he can’t really explain how we all survived that, we were very lucky, but it was devastating,” she said.

The Hammonds left the area after the storm, with Saundra feeling as though she “couldn’t take it anymore.”

“My cousin told me she thinks I have PTSD. She said, ‘You were such a tree-hugger, and you lived through this,’” said Hammond. “We were in shock at first, but now it is just heartbreaking.”

Wind-blown trees have not been the only things causing long-term problems. Some residents have had trouble with the internet months after the storm. 

Aléigha Swift, a 28-year-old underwriter and Greenville resident who works from home, said that her Wi-Fi has not been restored fully. She said it goes out throughout the day, and her provider has not given her an estimated time for when they will have it fixed.

“It has been unstable since the storm, that’s how bad it was,” she said. “It was just a lot. It was crazy. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Greenville wasn’t prepared for it.”

Like the Hammonds, Swift left the area after the storm. “We were in Charlotte, probably for about five days, came back,” Swift said. “Power still was off. I want to say our power was off for almost a week and a half, and we kind of just toughed it out.” 

Shivank Gowda, a high school student from Greer who stayed in his home throughout the recovery, said his family’s power was out for about a week. He said it was difficult traveling to and from school because of blocked roads. Many of the students in his school, he said, had no power for a much longer period of time.

One of the hardest parts about coping with the storm, he added, was how lonely it was, with people trapped in their homes, with or without power. 

“Because you couldn’t travel too much, or call other people because everyone’s trying to save power,” Gowda said. “You couldn’t really travel while the roads were down.

Aaron Davis, the executive director for Trees Upstate, said there has not been an assessment on tree canopy loss in the area, but there is a concern with all of the trees that came down.  

“Estimates can vary on how many trees we may have lost, but in terms of overall canopy, we may be looking anywhere from one to three to four percent of tree canopy coverage,” Davis said. “So, it’s not, we haven’t lost 10 percent of our trees. A lot of people in certain communities lost 10 percent of their trees, depending on what sort of wind came through the area.”

Even one percentage point would mean the loss of tens to hundreds of thousands of trees. he said.

Tree canopy loss could impact urban stormwater management and air pollution, Davis said. It also is heavily correlated with an overall quality of life and community pride.

“The area has a rich history of loving their trees, and we’re on that edge where we really need to think about what the next few years will look like and some of the sacrifices we have to make if we’re going to even maintain our level of tree canopy,” he said. 

Ward said people should replant lost trees near their homes.

“I think in terms of long-term effects, it’s like growing those trees again or replanting trees, making sure that we have good infrastructure for flooding,” said Charlotte Ward, communications and media manager for the Citizens Climate Lobby, in Greenville.

Hurricane Helene’s devastation and impact to the Western Carolinas was a result of more intense storms due to climate change, she said, and may start to impact the way people upstate feel about a warming planet.  

The environmental impact of the storm will have long-lasting impacts, said Charlotte Ward, communications and media manager for the Citizens Climate Lobby, in Greenville. 

“People are connecting the dots now in a way that they just didn’t before,” Ward said. “If you go to Charleston, it’s a different story. They’ve experienced really bad hurricanes. They have flooding all the time. So in many ways, they’re like the front line of climate change. But now, with having hit three hours inland, it’s resonating with some people.”

More people are making the connection between their experience with the global trend of climate change, she said, and it’s important for people to take action. 

“It’s a human-caused problem, it can be human-solved,” Ward said. “And the worst thing we can do is do nothing, because the more we do nothing, the worse it’s going to get. But we do have options. We do have solutions, so we just have to build that political will for the solutions.”

Cover photo: A person walks past downed power lines as South Carolina residents deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Oct. 5 in Greenwood, S.C. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images