Updated Oct. 9, 2024, 3:45 p.m.: The South Carolina Department of Public Safety announced Wednesday that an 11th victim of Helene has been confirmed in Aiken County. The death, of a 66-year-old county man, marks the fourth county resident to die of a respiratory condition.
Laurens County Coroner Vickie Cheek also confirmed the fourth and fifth deaths attributed to Helene in the county, but did not specify the causes.
The latest official numbers of South Carolina deaths blamed on Tropical Storm Helene and its aftermath are:
· Aiken: 11
· Anderson: 5
· Chester: 2
· Chesterfield: 1
· Greenville: 7
· Greenwood: 1
· Laurens: 5
· Newberry: 5
· Richland: 1
· Saluda: 3
· Spartanburg: 8
· York: 1
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By Monday morning, the number of deaths attributed to Tropical Storm Helene in South Carolina reached 48.
Hardest hit to date are Aiken, Spartanburg, and Greenville counties, which have officially announced 10, nine, and seven deaths, respectively.
The latest official numbers of South Carolina deaths blamed on Tropical Storm Helene and its aftermath are:
· Aiken: 10
· Anderson: 5
· Chester: 2
· Chesterfield: 1
· Greenville: 7
· Greenwood: 1
· Laurens: 3
· Newberry: 5
· Richland: 1
· Saluda: 3
· Spartanburg: 8
· York: 1
Aiken
Aiken County Coroner Darryl Ables said Monday that while the initial number of storm-related deaths in the county – four – were a direct result of fallen trees, subsequent deaths there are the result of power outages and debris cleanup.
According to Ables, three Aiken County residents died from respiratory conditions when they had no power to operate oxygen they’d needed to live. Another resident died in a house fire, the result of burning a candle for light.
Two residents who had histories of cardiac diseases died from heart failure from clearing their properties, Ables said.
At its worst, over the weekend following Helene, power outage in Aiken County was above 86%. By Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, 8,250 power customers – about 8% – were still waiting for the lights to come back on in the county. More than 8,200 of those outages were customers of Aiken Electric Cooperative and Dominion Energy.
One of the reasons, 10 days after Helene hit Aiken County, that there are still so many power outages is due to the time and danger inherent in cleaning up fallen power lines.
“One of the most dangerous things our linemen do is cut trees,” said Keller Kissam, president of Dominion Energy, during a press conference in Aiken last week. “The lines are under tension if they're there on that tree. And when you cut those limbs off it … if it's spring back, it can take your head off.”
Another reason thousands of residents are still without power in the county has to do with damage to power stations and infrastructure.
Aiken Electric Cooperative CEO Gary Stooksbury posted on Facebook last week that the downed power lines are only one aspect of the cleanup.
“What you’re not seeing is just as alarming: underground cables flooded beyond repair, entire substations submerged in water, transformers crushed by debris, and access routes completely washed out,” he wrote. “The destruction from Hurricane Helene runs deep—more than what meets the eye.”
Stooksbury wrote that AEC’s crews are “battling through these obstacles, seen and unseen, doing everything in their power to bring the lights back on.”
Greenville
Similarly, in Greenville County, where seven residents are confirmed to have been killed as a result of Helene, power was still out for 12,150 customers as of Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. That is about 4% of customers in the county, which saw power outage totals of above 80% in the immediate wake of the storm.
And power could remain out for several Greenville City and County residents for the next several days because above-ground power stations were damaged by the storm.
So were more than 6,600 power lines. The Greenville News reported that 6,650 lines were downed or damaged in Duke Energy’s Upstate service area by Helene. On Saturday, Duke stated on its website that it had restored power to 1 million customers in South Carolina.
Greenville City Councilwoman Dorothy Dowe said last Thursday that she wants to look into undergrounding the city’s power infrastructure.
Spartanburg
In Spartanburg County, Coroner Rusty Clevenger confirmed a ninth storm-related death on Sunday, the victim of a car crash. Clevenger told reporters that a tree upended by Helene’s runoff fell across Highway 292. Two cars collided while trying to avoid the tree and one man died from crash-related injuries on Oct. 2.
This was at least the third Helene-related death in Spartanburg County connected to a traffic accident. Last week, two women died in a crash that occurred at an intersection that had no power to the traffic light.
Helene-related power outages in Spartanburg County, however, are becoming extinct, but almost 10,000 customers are still in the dark. By Monday morning, PowerOutage.us reported 5.52% of the county was still without power. While that translates into 9,674 customers still without power, that total is down from the 99% of the county’s 175,000 customers who lost power from the storm.
Other power outages
As of Monday morning, 48,500 customers were still without power in South Carolina; four Upstate counties still reported more than 10% of residents as not having power. Where power is still out for the highest percentage of customers is Edgefield County, where almost 29% of customers were still without power as of Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
That’s 4,185 of the almost 15,000 energy customers in the county, served mainly by Aiken Energy Cooperative (which had 3,452 customers still out Monday) and Dominion Energy.
Daniele Ligons, the marketing manager at Aiken Electric Cooperative, said Monday that Edgefield County was probably the worst hit of AEC’s nine-county coverage area.
“We’re literally having to rebuild the system,” Ligons said. "You can’t make repairs when you don’t have anything to repair.”
She said 700 line crew members from various states are working in Edgefield County to get power back on. She expects to update how long customers can expect to remain without power later on Monday.
The other counties with more than 10% of customers without power are:
· McCormick: 13%
· Greenwood: 12%
· Laurens: 14%