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Helene strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane ahead of its expected landfall on Florida’s northwest coast Thursday night, forecasters said, warning that the enormous storm could create a “nightmare” surge in coastal areas and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S.
Emergencies declared in multiple states
The Associated Press
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Flooding in Florida begins as Hurricane Helene heading for landfall
Streets in parts of Florida are already submerged as Helene brought heavy rain and high winds to the state ahead of its expected landfall on Thursday evening.
Helene strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday, ahead of its expected landfall tomorrow night on Florida’s northwest coast, forecasters said, warning that the enormous storm could create a “nightmare” surge in coastal areas and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S.
Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds over 209 km/h that can severely damage homes, snap trees and down power lines. Strong winds have already cut power to over 250,000 homes and businesses in Florida, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.
The hurricane was about 195 kilometres west of Tampa, Fla., and had sustained winds of 215 km/h, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Life-threatening storm surges of up to six metres were expected in the Big Bend area of Florida.
Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states.
Debris crashes ashore
The storm’s wrath was already starting to be felt Thursday afternoon, with water lapping over a road on the northern tip of Siesta Key near Sarasota Fla., and covering 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.
Beyond Florida, up to 25 centimetres of rain has fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 36 centimetres more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday morning that models suggest Helene will make landfall further east, 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.
Along Florida’s Gulf Coast, school districts and multiple universities cancelled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in the state and beyond.