Northwest Florida encounters "nightmare" as Hurricane Helene makes landfall
TALLAHASSEE - Residents in the path of Hurricane Helene in northwest Florida evacuated or hunkered down on Thursday for what the National Weather Service office said was a "nightmare" scenario of catastrophic storm surge.
With maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, the Category 4 storm made landfall at 11:10 p.m. in Florida's Big Bend region, just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River and about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry in Taylor County.
The following surge levels were reported at record levels: Old Port Tampa 5.5 feet, East Bay Tampa 5.93 feet, St. Petersburg 5.47 feet, Clearwater Beach 6.3 feet, Port Manatee 5.58 feet.
The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee had forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly "catastrophic and unsurvivable" in Apalachee Bay. It added that high winds and heavy rains also posed risks.
A University of Florida Coastal Monitoring Program located on Cedar Key reported a sustained wind of 59 mph and a wind gust of 78 mph.
The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee urged residents to "please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously," describing the surge scenario as "a nightmare." Helene was expected to cause significant damage hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern U.S.
Statewide, more than 1 million customers were without power Friday morning, according to Poweroutage.us.
Helene was upgraded to a major Category 4 storm Thursday night before rapidly weakening as it moved inland. Hurricane and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. Most of Florida was under a tropical storm warning as the storm neared.
The storm aimed squarely at the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida's Panhandle and peninsula meet. Shuttered gas stations dotted the two-lane highway, their windows boarded up with plywood. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Urban Search and Rescue team members were staging in Ocala, which is inland from Big Bend.
More than 175 people were sheltering in a school in Tallahassee.
Annie Sloan, who was one of them, told CBS News Miami: "I decided to come to the shelter because I live alone and basically my son came to take me to Georgia, but we discovered the hurricane was going to Georgia also, and I decided to just come here and shelter because my husband passed, and I don't want to be home alone."
Barbara Conyers, who also lives alone, said: "last time I was there at my home and wires were down after the storm and I was afraid to go out."
Sharonda Davis also was gathered at a Tallahassee shelter and worried her mobile homes wouldn't withstand the winds. She told Associated Press the hurricane's size is "scarier than anything because it's the aftermath that we're going to have to face."
Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region's Apalachee Bay, told Associated Press he plans to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others – on his boat. "This is what pays my bills," Tooke said of his boats. "If I lose that, I don't have anything."
Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota.
Most gas stations in the Tallahassee area were shut down or out of gas.
Gus Daniels Jr. was one of many people CBS News Miami met, saying he looked for gas at three stations with plans to check out another one.
Anthony Godwin, 20, found one gas station outside Crawfordville where the tanks were still running Thursday morning to fill up before heading west toward his sister's house in Pensacola.
"It's a part of life. You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm," said Godwin, who lives about a half-mile from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, told Associated Press. During Hurricane Michael in 2018, Godwin said the water came up to the end of the driveway of his family's home.
Along Florida's Gulf Coast, school districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in the state and beyond.
The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies, as did President Joe Biden for several of the states. He is sending the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Florida on Friday to view the damage.
As Helene moves inland, damaging winds were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The center posted lesser tropical storm warnings as far north as North Carolina, and warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding.
Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.