It’s already battering the state’s west coast with tropical storm-force winds and has caused hundreds of thousands of power outages.
This satellite image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Helene advancing across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee issued an “extreme wind warning” for the Big Bend as the eyewall approached: “Treat this warning like a tornado warning,” it said in a post on X. “Take shelter in the most interior room and hunker down!” Hurricane Helene's winds increased to 140 mph on Thursday night as the eye wall of the storm began to move onshore on Florida's Big Bend.Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110 mph.
Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region’s Apalachee Bay, planned 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,” Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and caused some $25 billion in damage when it struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018.
“Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously!” the office said, describing the surge scenario as “a nightmare.” 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 hurricane center warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched.
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