On Thursday night Helene crashed into Florida’s coast as a Category 4 hurricane. The giant storm with 140-mile-per-hour winds made landfall close to where Hurricane Debby hit in August and where Idalia struck just over a year ago. It quickly made its way inland, knocking out power for millions. And even before that, it started dumping rain — now 12 to 15 inches across a swath of Georgia and South Carolina, and a stunning 29-plus inches in Busick, North Carolina.
The disaster underscores Americans’ dangerously low levels of flood insurance coverage, especially away from