Florida braces for ‘catastrophic’ Hurricane Helene

Florida braced for the arrival of Hurricane Helene on Thursday, forecast to be a powerful category 4 storm when it smashes into the state’s panhandle.

Officials issued warnings and pleaded with residents in coastal areas along the hurricane’s path to evacuate ahead of strong winds and a potentially deadly storm surge — a wall of seawater pushed on land by hurricane-force winds that could rise to 6m in some areas.

“This is not a survivable event for those in coastal or low-lying areas,” said Jared Miller, the sheriff of Wakulla county, where Helene is forecast to make landfall. “Please heed the evacuation orders in place as time is running out to do so.”

Helene roared across the Gulf of Mexico, picking up power from the warm ocean water. It is forecast to make landfall in Florida’s panhandle on Thursday evening, packing sustained wind speeds of up to 251km/h, forecasters said.

“For those in the path, that unfortunately means catastrophic wind impacts,” National Hurricane Center deputy director Jamie Rhome said.

WALL OF WATER

A storm surge was forecast to reach between 4.6m and 6.1m in the Big Bend area of Florida’s panhandle where the storm was expected to come ashore, Rhome said.

More than 40-million people in Florida, Georgia and Alabama were under hurricane and tropical storm warnings, the hurricane centre said.

Numerous evacuations were ordered along Florida’s Gulf Coast, including Sarasota and Charlotte counties, and dozens of counties have announced school closures, including Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

Pinellas county officials ordered evacuations of long-term healthcare facilities, including nursing homes, assisted living centres and hospitals near the coast. The county sits on a peninsula surrounded by Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

John Dailey, the mayor of Tallahassee, Florida’s capital city that is in the direct path of Helene, said the hurricane could be the strongest storm to directly hit the city.

Helene could produce “unprecedented damage like nothing we have ever experienced before as a community”, Dailey told reporters on Wednesday.

Torrential rains

Helene was expected to dump up to 38cm of rain in some isolated spots after making landfall in Florida, causing considerable flooding, the hurricane centre said.

Rhome said about half of lives lost in hurricanes typically came from flash flooding caused by torrential rain, often when people drove into flooded roads and were swept away. He urged those in affected areas to use extreme caution.

The high winds were expected to stretch about 290km north from the Florida panhandle to southern Georgia.

“You need to prepare for prolonged [energy] outages, those trees are going to come down in strong winds [and] block roads,” Rhome said.

Reuters