“Extremely dangerous” Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US state of Florida on Thursday, with officials warning of “unsafe” conditions and a potentially devastating storm surge that would overwhelm a two-story home.
More than a million people were without power and roads were already flooded before one of the biggest hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico in decades was expected to hit.
The fast-moving Helene intensified into an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane on Thursday, making landfall near the town of Perry at about 11:10 p.m. local time (0310 GMT Friday), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
It had winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf and began hitting the Big Bend area south of Tallahassee.
“Everyone along the Florida Big Bend coast is at risk for a potentially devastating hurricane,” the NHC said on social media.
The Tampa and Tallahassee airports are closed, and parts of St. Petersburg, Downtown Tampa, Sarasota, Treasure Island and other cities on Florida’s west coast are already flooded.
According to the tracking site PowerOutage.us, about 1,036,553 homes and businesses were without power.
“We are expecting to see storm surge flooding 15 to 20 feet above ground level,” said NHC Director Mike Brennan. “It’s all the way up to the top of the building on the second floor. Again, this part of the Florida coastline is really going to have an incredible landscape.”
“The accompanying waves can destroy homes, shake cars and the water levels are going to rise very quickly,” Brennan said.
US President Joe Biden urged people to heed official evacuation warnings.
“I urge everyone in and around Helen’s path to listen to local officials and follow evacuation warnings,” he said. “Take this seriously, and stay safe.”
‘I’m stuck with them’
Authorities in Taylor County, Florida, asked residents who did not act on mandatory evacuation warnings to write their names with a permanent marker on their bodies to aid identification if they were killed.
In Alligator Point, a coastal town on a picturesque peninsula in the storm’s path, David Wesolowski wasn’t taking any chances.
“I just came to close some things before the wind gets too strong,” the 37-year-old real estate agent told AFP as he roofed his house on stilts.
“If it continues like this, it will look different later on, that’s for sure,” he said.
Patrick Rickert refused to move from his small wooden home in Crawfordville, a town of 5,000 people a few miles away.
Most residents have locked down, but Rickert, 58, his wife and five grandchildren are “not going anywhere.”
“I’ll stay calm” and ride out the storm, as he did in 2018 when deadly Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 mega-hurricane, tore through the Florida Panhandle.
At a gas station in Panacea, John Luper said he was reluctantly staying there because his mother and brother refused to flee to higher ground.
“They’re not going to go,” he said while filling the jerry cans with fuel. “I’m stuck with them.”
The NHC warned of up to 20 inches (51 cm) of rain in some locations and potentially life-threatening flooding, as well as multiple landslides in the southern Appalachians.
The National Weather Service said the region could be badly hit, with flooding not seen in more than a century.
“This will be one of the most significant weather events to occur in western parts of the region in the modern era,” she warned.
Tornado warnings were issued for northern Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
More than 55 million Americans were under some type of weather warning or warning from Hurricane Helene.
‘Multi-State Program’
“This is going to be a multi-state event, with the potential to have significant impacts from Florida to Tennessee,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Dean Criswell told reporters.
Vice President Kamala Harris said the White House is keeping an eye.
“The President and I, of course, are monitoring the case and the situation closely, and we urge everyone watching right now to take this storm very seriously,” he told reporters.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis mobilized the National Guard and ordered thousands of personnel to be ready for search and rescue operations.
He warned that the powerful storm would be dangerous and urged everyone to take precautions.
“We can’t control how strong this storm is going to get. We can’t control the track of the storm, but what you can control is what you do to give yourself the best chance of dealing with it.” We can do it in a way that would be safe,” DeSantis said.
Helene could become the most powerful hurricane to hit the United States in more than a year — and at nearly 500 miles across, almost certainly the largest.
Scientists say climate change likely plays a role in hurricanes becoming increasingly intense because warmer oceans have more energy to feed on.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
