AP – Fast-moving Hurricane Helene advanced yesterday across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida in the United States (US), threatening an “unsurvivable” storm surge in northwestern parts of the state as well as damaging winds, rains and flash floods hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern US, forecasters said.
Helene was upgraded yesterday to a Category 2 storm and is expected to be a major hurricane – meaning a Category 3 or higher – after it made landfall on Florida’s northwestern coast yesterday evening.
The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states.
Rain was beginning to blow in the predawn darkness yesterday along coastal US Highway 98, which winds through countless fishing villages and vacation hideaways along Florida’s Big Bend. Shuttered gas stations dotted the two-lane highway, their windows boarded up with plywood to protect from the storm.
The road was largely empty at first light yesterday, with what drivers there were mostly heading northeast, towards higher ground. The storm was expected to make landfall in the Big Bend region, where Florida’s panhandle and peninsula meet, according to senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami Jack Beven. “Regardless of how strong it is, it is a very large storm, Beven said. “It’s going to have impacts that cover a large area.”
The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee forecast storm surges of up to six metres and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Florida’s Apalachee Bay.
