Apocalyptic chaos has struck down in the South as millions are left without power as desperate families line up at gas stations and roving mobs steal generators.
The southeastern United States has been plunged into crisis as the aftermath of Hurricane Helene continues to wreak havoc across multiple states.
The storm has left a trail of destruction in its wake with the death toll rising to 64.
As of Saturday, a staggering 2.5 million customers across South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia remained without power, according to PowerOutage.us.
The power outages have sparked scenes of chaos, with desperate families lining up outside gas stations and reports emerging of roving mobs stealing generators.
The despairing sights have left many wondering where the federal government is to help.
‘Many people are stranded with little to nothing.. WHERE IS FEMA?’ one social media user asked.
‘What are government officials doing? There is no WATER!’
In Augusta, Georgia, shocking video footage shared on social media shows lines of cars stretching for miles as residents desperately wait to fill up their tanks.
On Saturday lines for gas were miles long, one social media user wrote in a caption.
The situation has deteriorated since then, with the same user reporting that as of Sunday, Kroger was closed and there was no more food or gas left.
On top of that, power is only expected to come back on October 5.
Other photos circulating on social show shocking photos of the devastation, with downed power lines and fallen trees blocking roads and crushing vehicles.
Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm late Thursday, slamming into Florida’s Big Bend region with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).
The storm’s destructive path continued through Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp surveyed the damage from the air on Saturday.
‘What is looks like from the air is it looks like a tornado went off, it looks like a bomb went off,’ Kemp told reporters in Valdosta. ‘And it’s not just here, it looks like this from here all the way to Augusta.’
‘This is certainly going to be multiple days of outage,’ Georgia Power Co. CEO Kim Greene said.
As the weakened storm moved north, it unleashed torrential rains on the Carolinas and Tennessee, causing widespread flooding and landslides.
Western North Carolina found itself cut off as roads, including Interstate 40, were forced to close.
The flooding led to dramatic rescue operations, including the helicopter evacuation of dozens of patients and staff from a hospital rooftop in rural Unicoi County, East Tennessee.
Rescue efforts continued into Saturday in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where parts of Asheville were submerged.
‘It’s not that we (were) not prepared, but this is going to another level,’ Sheriff Quentin Miller said. ‘To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement.’