Hurricane Helene strengthened into a Category 4 storm ahead of its expected landfall on Florida’s northwest coast Thursday night as forecasters warned that the enormous system could create a “nightmare” storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S.
Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. Strong winds already cut power to more than 600,000 homes and businesses in Florida, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.
The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states.
The hurricane was about 145 kilometres south of Tallahassee, Fla., and had sustained winds of 225 km/h, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Accelerating through the Gulf of Mexico, it was moving north-northeast at 39 km/h, and life-threatening storm surges of up to six metres were expected in the Big Bend area of Florida.
Helene arrives barely a year after Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida’s Big Bend and caused widespread damage. Idalia became a Category 4 in the Gulf of Mexico but made landfall as a Category 3 near Keaton Beach, with maximum sustained winds near 205 km/h.
Debris crashes ashore
The storm’s wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Florida’s west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota, Fla., and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach along Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago was crashing ashore in the rising water.
Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up in Valdosta, Ga., near the Florida state line. The U.S. National Weather Service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that models suggest Helene will make landfall further east than forecast earlier, lessening the chances for a direct hit on the capital city of Tallahassee, whose metro area has a population of around 395,000.
The shift has the storm aimed squarely at the sparsely populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida’s Panhandle and peninsula meet.
“Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified,” the sheriff’s office in mostly rural Taylor County warned in a Facebook post, to those who chose not to evacuate, the dire advice similar to what other officials have doled out during past hurricanes.
Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region’s Apalachee Bay, plans to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others — on his boat. “If I lose that, I don’t have anything.”
Getting out ahead of the storm
Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota.
Among them was Sharonda Davis, one of several gathered at a Tallahassee shelter worried their mobile homes wouldn’t withstand the winds. She said the hurricane’s size is “scarier than anything because it’s the aftermath that we’re going to have to face.”
Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the U.S. National Weather Service office in Tallahassee forecast storm surges of up to six metres and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Apalachee Bay.
“Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously!” the office said, describing the surge scenario as “a nightmare.”
This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Florida’s beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders — the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands.
“You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm,” said Anthony Godwin, who lives less than a kilometre from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, Fla., as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sister’s house in Pensacola, Fla.
School districts and multiple universities cancelled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond.
While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched.
