Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday evening along the Florida coast, a powerful and potentially disastrous Category 4 storm, wreaking havoc across a large swath of the Gulf Coast and threatening high winds, storm surge and torrential rains.
Helene was located about 45 miles east-southeast of Tallahassee, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, the Miami-based AU National Hurricane Center said Thursday evening.
The massive storm formed quickly this week and strengthened as it moved across the warm waters of the Gulf and picked up speed.
Helen’s storm surge – the wall of seawater pushed onto land by strong winds – could reach up to 6.1 meters (20 feet) in some places.
“This is not a life-sustaining event for people living in coastal or low-lying areas,” said Jared Miller, sheriff of Wakulla County on the Florida coast. “Please heed the evacuation orders in effect as time is of the essence to do so.”
States of emergency have been declared in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Alabama.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged residents of North Florida to flee before time runs out, warning of flooding, road closures and power outages. Although the storm is expected to weaken once it makes landfall, it is moving quickly and could continue to spread.
“You’re going to have hurricane-force winds for probably 50 miles outside the eye of the storm, and then you’re going to continue to see waves, particularly in that Big Bend area,” DeSantis said during a press briefing Thursday evening. , held at the state emergency operations center in Tallahassee.
John Dailey, mayor of Tallahassee, the Florida capital that is in Helene’s direct path, said the hurricane could be the strongest storm to ever directly hit his city. Helene could produce “unprecedented damage like we’ve never experienced before as a community,” Dailey told reporters Wednesday.
Climatologists have warned that global warming is increasing the number and strength of powerful hurricanes. Although neither storm is caused by climate change, the new pattern of increasingly violent hurricanes is fueled by warming of the planet’s oceans and seas. Much of Helen’s power came from the force she had built up over the Gulf of Mexico, which reached unprecedented temperatures in recent years.
Helene is expected to be one of the largest storms in years to hit the region, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, told the Associated Press. He said that since 1988, only three hurricanes in the Gulf were larger than Helen’s predicted size: Irma in 2017, Wilma in 2005 and Opal in 1995.
Parts of Florida were already feeling the impact of the storm before it made landfall. In communities like Fort Myers Beach, Florida, the water was already 2 feet above normal earlier Thursday. Cities like Tampa and St. Petersburg experienced storm surges of 5 feet Thursday evening.
The hurricane is expected to move up the Southeast coast once it makes landfall, moving from Florida to North Carolina. At least 50 million people are under hurricane and tropical storm warnings.
As night fell in the North Carolina mountains, emergency officials urged residents to move to safety on higher ground as Hurricane Helene neared landfall. The region has already been hit by heavy rain from another storm and forecasters predict another 9 to 14 inches of rain could fall as the remnants of Helene move through the region overnight Thursday into Friday.
“A storm like this causes flooding where we’ve never seen it before,” said Jimmy Brissie, emergency services director for Henderson County, south of Asheville.
Helene cut power to western Cuba as it brushed past the island, affecting about 160,000 customers in Artemisa province and another 70,000 in neighboring Pinar del Río province. The hurricane also forced about 800 people in the region to evacuate flood-prone areas, according to Guerrillero, a local newspaper.
The storm submerged part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort town of Cancun.
Helen is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began in June. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year due to record ocean temperatures.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
