LUMBERTON — Heavy rain and strong winds blew through Robeson County on Friday, remnants of Hurricane Helene, a class 4 storm that made landfall very late Thursday night near the Florida Big Bend.

“Due to its large physical size, effects were felt far away from the storm center,” stated Steven Pfaff, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Robeson County saw very heavy rain on Friday morning and remained under a Flood Warning until Friday night.

Heavy rains locally and upstream pushed the Lumber River over its banks on Wednesday, causing localized flooding in low lying areas. The Lumber River receded back below the 13-foot flood stage mid week, but was expected to rise above the 13-foot level again late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

On Friday morning, National Weather Forecasters issued a Tornado Warning for the greater Robeson County area based on satellite measurements, but no tornadoes were reported in the area.

Helene’s most destructive power was felt along the Florida panhandle and immediate inland areas.

The storm left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 40 people in four states, snapping towering oaks like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters.

The Category 4 hurricane knocked out power to some hospitals in southern Georgia, and Gov. Brian Kemp said authorities had to use chainsaws to clear debris and open up roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Florida’s rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida’s Panhandle and peninsula meet.

Moody’s Analytics said Friday it expects $15 to $26 billion in property damage.

That damage extended hundreds of miles northward to northeast Tennessee, where a “dangerous rescue situation” by helicopter unfolded after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital as water rapidly flooded the facility. All staff and patients were rescued and no one was left at the hospital as of late Friday afternoon, Ballad Health said.

In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam. People in surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure hadn’t failed.