Hurricane Helene is forecast to strengthen rapidly and hit Florida on Thursday (26) as a Category 4 storm, producing “catastrophic” winds of 155 mph (251 km per hour), forecasters said.
Helene entered the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday (25) and is expected to gain strength in the warm waters of the gulf before hitting Florida on Thursday night local time.
“For those in the path, this unfortunately means catastrophic wind impacts,” National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said of the predicted increase in strength to Category 4.
The wall of seawater pushed ashore by hurricane-force winds was upgraded to 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 meters) in the Big Bend area of Florida, where the storm is expected to make landfall, Rhome said.
More than 40 million people in Florida, Georgia and Alabama were under hurricane and tropical storm warnings, the hurricane center said.
Several evacuations were ordered along Florida’s Gulf Coast, including in Sarasota and Charlotte counties. Dozens of counties announced school closures, including Hillsborough and Pinellas.
Pinellas County officials have ordered evacuations of long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, assisted living centers and hospitals near the coast. The county sits on a peninsula surrounded by Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
“Now, you still have time to prepare, review your hurricane plan and make sure you are executing your preparedness plan,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday (24).
Helene hit Cuba with heavy rains dumping up to 20.3 cm (8 inches) in 24 hours in parts of the tobacco-producing Pinar del Rio province in the west, the provincial weather service said.
Helene was expected to dump up to 15 inches (38.1 cm) of rain in isolated spots after making landfall in Florida, causing significant urban flooding and lightning, the hurricane center said.
Rhome, of the hurricane center, said about half of the lives lost in hurricanes typically come from flash flooding caused by torrential rains, among people who drive on flooded roads and are swept away. He urged people in affected areas to exercise extreme caution.
The deputy director of the National Hurricane Center added that the expected impact area of hurricane-force winds extends about 180 miles (290 km) north of the Florida panhandle to southern Georgia.
“You need to prepare for prolonged outages, these trees are going to fall in high winds, block roads,” Rhome said.
Residents in the potential path are being told to prepare to be without power for up to a week, Florida emergency officials said in a briefing.
In southwest Georgia, farmers were scrambling Wednesday to save their cotton and pecan crops, said Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist at the University of Georgia in Athens.
“This will be a billion-dollar disaster,” Knox said.
This content was originally published in Hurricane Helene expected to hit Florida as a “catastrophic” Category 4 storm on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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