Hurricane Helene makes landfall in northwest Florida

CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Helene made landfall in northwest Florida on Thursday evening as a Category 4 storm, as forecasters warned the enormous system could create a ‘nightmare’ storm surge bringing dangerous winds and rain to much of the southeastern US

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Helene made landfall near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of ​​Florida’s Gulf Coast around 11:10 p.m. EDT. Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 225 km per hour. That location was only about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year with almost the same ferocity and caused great damage.

Helen asked hurricane and flash flood warnings extends well beyond the coast into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. According to the tracking site poweroutage.us, more than a million homes and businesses in Florida and more than 50,000 in Georgia were without power. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Carolina and Virginia have all declared states of emergency in their states.

One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed by a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached.

“When the people of Florida wake up tomorrow morning, we will wake up to a situation where there will most likely be more loss of life and certainly more property lost,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. . night.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee had issued an “extreme wind warning” for the Big Bend as the eyewall approached: “Treat this warning as a tornado warning,” read a message on !”

Even before landing the wrath of the storm was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm force winds and hurricane force winds along the west coast of Florida. The water flowed over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed into rising waters.

Outside Florida, up to 10 inches of rain had fallen in the mountains of North Carolina, with another 14 inches more possible before the deluge ends, paving the way for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything else . seen in the past century.

Heavy rains began and winds increased earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could experience hurricane force winds of more than 110 miles per hour.

Two people were killed in south Georgia Thursday evening when a possible tornado struck a mobile home, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The damage was reported as severe thunderstorms lashed much of the state. Wheeler County is located approximately 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of Macon.

Forecaster Dylan Lusk said the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Wheeler County on Thursday at 8:47 p.m. He said it is one of 12 tornado warnings the Atlanta-area office issued for parts of Georgia between 1 p.m. and 11 p.m.

The storm made landfall in the sparsely populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and resorts where Florida’s Panhandle and the 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 your family can be notified,” the sheriff’s office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post. afterthe dire advice is similar to what other officials have issued during previous hurricanes.

Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region’s Apalachee Bay, planned to weather this storm as he did during Hurricane Michael and the others – on his boat. “If I lose that, I have nothing,” Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, virtually destroyed one city, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and causing about $25 billion in damage when it hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018.

However, many took into account the mandatory rules evacuation orders which extended from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast into low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota.

Among them, Sharonda Davis, one of many who gathered at a Tallahassee shelter, worried their mobile homes wouldn’t be able to withstand the wind. She said the magnitude of the hurricane is “scarier than anything because it’s the aftermath that we’re going to have to deal with.”

Federal authorities organized search and rescue teams, as the weather service predicted storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Apalachee Bay.

“Please, please, please take all evacuation orders seriously!” the office said, describing the golf scenario as “a nightmare.”

Known as the Forgotten Coast, this part of Florida has been largely spared by the widespread condominium development and commercialization that dominates so many Florida beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders: its vast salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands.

“If you live down here you’re at risk of losing everything to a big storm,” said Anthony Godwin, 20, who lives about a half mile from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward the his sister’s home in Pensacola.

School districts and several universities have canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond.

Although Helene is likely to weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to spread into the southern Appalachians, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The hurricane center warned that much of the region could experience extended power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get soaked.

Helene had flooded parts of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula on Wednesday, streets were flooded and trees felled as it passed offshore and hit the resort town of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it swept across the island.

Areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line were expecting hurricane conditions. The state opened its parks to evacuees and their pets, including horses. Curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in South Georgia.

“This is one of the biggest storms we’ve ever had,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said.

For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst attack on a major city in the Interior South in 35 years, said Marshall Shepherd, a professor of meteorology at the University of Georgia.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year due to record warm ocean temperatures.

During storm activity in the Pacific Ocean former Hurricane John became a tropical storm on Wednesday and strengthened back into a hurricane on Thursday as it threatened parts of Mexico’s west coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador raised John’s death toll to five as communities along the country’s Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make landfall for a second time.

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Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.