The storm moved inland into Georgia as a dangerous Category 1 hurricane, forecasters said. The authorities warned of life-threatening conditions.
Helene is the strongest storm to hit Florida’s Big Bend region. Here’s the latest.
Sept. 27, 2024, 2:05 a.m. ET32 minutes ago
Patricia MazzeiJudson Jones and Orlando Mayorquín
Patricia Mazzei and Judson Jones reported from Florida. Orlando Mayorquín reported from New York.
Hurricane Helene moved into Georgia early Friday, after pummeling Florida’s Gulf Coast with heavy rains and fierce, whipping winds that sounded like jet engines revving. Packing 140-mile-per-hour winds when it made landfall, the Category 4 storm was the most powerful to ever strike Florida’s Big Bend region.
While Helene became a Category 1 storm with winds of 90 m.p.h. as it moved across Georgia, it continued to create dangerous conditions in the region including “life-threatening” storm surge and heavy rain, forecasters said. They warned of a “nightmare” scenario for low-lying communities in western Florida that could be swallowed by a 20-foot storm surge.
President Biden, who approved disaster declarations for Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, urged people to take the storm “extremely seriously,” saying it was expected to be “catastrophic.”
Here’s what we’re covering:
- Scenes from Florida: Along the state’s Gulf Coast, wind-whipped waves slammed bridges and violently lapped at partially submerged buildings. Falling trees knocked down power lines.
- Impacts elsewhere: Powerful winds could extend as far as central Georgia. “Significant landslides” were predicted across southern Appalachia through Friday. In Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., nearly 400 miles from Florida’s Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the storm may be one of the region’s “most significant weather events” in modern history.
- Power outages: Almost 1.3 million customers were without power across Florida early Friday. An additional 330,000 customers were out of power in Georgia. Widespread damage to the power grid could cause outages that last days, if not weeks, forecasters warned.
- A storm-related death: A 4-year-old girl was killed in a car crash in Catawba County, N.C., on Thursday, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. Amid heavy rains, the girl was riding in an S.U.V. that veered over a roadway’s centerline and crashed into another vehicle.