Hurricane Helene is intensifying towards Florida in the United States and is expected to hit the region as a Category 4 storm, bringing the threat of a potentially deadly storm to much of the coast.
Torrential rains flooded roads and closed airports in the US state.
The storm became a major Category 4 hurricane on Thursday (26) with sustained winds of about 209 km/h, the National Hurricane Center said, adding that it was expected to continue to gain strength.
Helene was expected to reach the coast around 11pm local time in the Big Bend region of Florida, US state authorities said.
Authorities urged residents in the storm’s path to obey mandatory evacuation orders or face life-threatening conditions.
Helene’s surge — the wall of seawater pushed onto land by hurricane-force winds — could rise up to 20 feet (6.1 meters) in some spots, as tall as a two-story house, said center director Michael Brennan .
Heavy bands of rain hit parts of the Florida coast, and had already passed through Georgia, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina and parts of Tennessee.
Atlanta, hundreds of miles north of Florida, was under a tropical storm warning.
In Pinellas County, which sits on a peninsula surrounded by Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, roads were already filling with water before noon local time.
Officials warned the storm’s impact could be as severe as last year’s Hurricane Idalia, which flooded 1,500 homes in the low-lying coastal county.
This content was originally published in Hurricane Helene threatens Florida with a deadly storm on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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