The powerful storm that slammed into northern Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday night has been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moves across the southeast.

Hurricane Helene made landfall around 10 miles west of Perry, Florida, at 11:10 p.m. ET, Fox Weather reported. Helene set the record for the strongest hurricane to hit Florida’s Big Bend, the area of the state where the panhandle meets the peninsula.

As the storm moved inland into Alabama and Georgia, it weakened to a tropical storm. Helene, however, remains dangerous, causing flooding and high winds that knocked out power for nearly one million customers in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. That’s in addition to the over 1.2 million customers without power in Florida, CNN reported. At least three storm-related deaths have been reported as of early Friday morning, and around 25 people in Atlanta have been rescued from flooding, authorities told CNN.

ATLANTA WATER RESCUES: Fire crews conducting water rescues as neighbors in Peachtree Park apartments evacuate due to rising flood waters from Peachtree Creek. Full report starting at 4:00 pic.twitter.com/bT0o9IktH0

— Lindsay Tuman (@LindsayOnTV) September 27, 2024

Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia have all declared states of emergency over Helene, with authorities warning of catastrophic flooding. As of Friday morning, Tropical Storm Helene was centered just east of Macon, Georgia, and moving northward at 30 mph, according to The Weather Channel.

The storm is expected to bring high winds and potential flash flooding to Tennessee and Kentucky and parts of Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia later on Friday. The east coasts of North and South Carolina are also at an increased risk of tornadoes on Friday.

Videos posted to social media showed the massive damage caused by Hurricane Helene in Florida. Footage of Cedar Key, Florida, posted by a storm chaser showed water nearly reaching the roofs of some houses as waves and high wind battered others.

Insane footage of storm surge coming from Cedar Key, FL. Please continue to pray for those in the path of Hurricane Helene. #Helene #HurricaneHelene pic.twitter.com/rU6MSAmUNq

— James Jinnette (@james_jinnette1) September 27, 2024

Florida saw extreme flooding as far south as Maderia Beach — near Tampa — as video showed water rising in the lobby of a resort.

Really bad flooding going on in Maderia Beach area. This is the lobby of the All Season Resort. Stay safe out there! Get the latest on #Helene -> https://t.co/qyo9QUAXi9 

Couresy: Randy Paradine pic.twitter.com/U6ycY2DQRz

— Spectrum Bay News 9 (@BN9) September 27, 2024

Border Patrol agents are sounding the alarm about increased child exploitation at the southern border, where children as young as 8 years old have been found drugged and “recycled” by smugglers.

In recent weeks, authorities have rescued numerous children at the border from smugglers, border patrol sources have told the New York Post.

In one instance, a woman traveling with two children, ages 8 and 11, was found to have drugged the minors with sleeping pills. The woman was not related to the children, though she tried to pose as their mother. The authentic birth certificates she showed authorities were not for the children she was traveling with.

Border agents, in another case, rescued a child who had similarly been “heavily dosed with sleep aids to prevent him from talking” to authorities, the Post report says. Those traffickers had birth certificates for other children, too.

Agents say smugglers are using children numerous times, or “recycling” them, to pose as family units and try to gain entry to the U.S.

One border patrol source told the Post that at the height of an immigration influx, they had to “let family units in.” He said after a while, agents noticed the same children cycling through, but with different “parents.”

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“I hate thinking about it, because there were thousands of kids, and who knows where they all ended up,” the source said.

There have been reports for years about migrants wearing wristbands that correspond with how much money they owe cartels for helping them get to the US. Elected officials have highlighted this exploitation, specifically to children, and urged for increased border security.

“Along the southern border, you see thousands of these wristbands because the illegal immigrants wear them,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last year, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“Every color corresponds to how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels,” the senator continued. “You have turned these cartels into multibillion-dollar criminal organizations. And these are modern-day leg irons, because these are children being sold into sex slavery.”

Senator Ted Cruz lashed out at Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: “…What are these wrist bands? …These are modern day leg irons because these are children being sold in to Sex slavery and you don’t even know what they are… Do you know how many children have been sold into Sex… pic.twitter.com/5v7JIVo7ky

— ꪻꫝể ꪻꫝể (@TheThe1776) March 28, 2023

The exploitation is happening to young migrants after the Biden-Harris administration is quickly placing them with sponsors, too.

Muckraker posted a video this week of first-hand accounts of young migrants who were placed with sponsors and suffered. One minor said her sponsor is forcing her to pay her $10,000 for taking her in. Another young female, who ended up temporarily homeless, described a similar experience.

“She would tell me that if I didn’t have money for rent, she would kick me out,” the minor said. “And to this day, she’s still charging me $4,000 for my trip from Honduras.”

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We tracked down some of the 320,000 illegal alien children lost by the Biden-Harris administration.

During the course of our investigation, we… pic.twitter.com/VO3XaOIe0o

— Muckraker.com (@realmuckraker) September 25, 2024

Last year, it was initially reported that 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children were unaccounted for, or lost, by HHS. The number is currently estimated at 320,000.

Due to the migrant influx, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has been overwhelmed, and Republicans say the department is prioritizing the speedy release of migrant children over their safety, The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak reported.

Still, Senate Democrats are working to loosen oversight of child migrant sponsorship. Under the proposed “Children’s Safe Welcome Act of 2024,” HHS would have to make its decision about whether to release a child to a proposed sponsor within just seven days of receiving an application.