Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm with winds of 140 miles an hour. It swallowed parts of Florida in a nine-foot storm surgetmt play, lashed the region with heavy rain and has cut power for millions of people. It is now in Georgia, where it is weakening to a tropical storm. You can track it here.
Helene is the most powerful hurricane ever to strike Florida’s Big Bend region, where the state’s long peninsula curves to meet its Panhandle. The storm is huge, and it is expected to damage much of the southeast. President Biden approved disaster declarations for Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina, in addition to Florida and Georgia.
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, said that one person had died from the storm but that there would likely be others. Brian Kemp, Georgia’s governor, said that a tornado there had killed two people, and one person died in North Carolina.
The damage from Helene’s record storm surge will come into view as the sun rises soon. (Follow the latest updates.)
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSerious damage is expected from the storm surge along Florida’s coast. The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee reported that a surge of up to 10 feet was moving mobile homes around in Steinhatchee, a coastal community near where the storm made landfall. In Cedar Key at midnight, tide levels were at nine feet, more than two feet above the previous record.
Biden is encouraging people across the region to shelter from the storm, which he called “catastrophic.”
Here’s what we know:
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A big reach: Helene is expected to douse people from the southern tip of Florida all the way to North Carolina. Officials predicted landslides across southern Appalachia and warned of damage in parts of South Carolina nearly 400 miles from Florida’s coast.
Power outages: More people are losing power, and widespread damage to the grid could cause outages that last days, if not weeks. More than 2.2 million customers were without power in the region early Friday. A majority of them, 1.2 million, were in Florida. More people are losing power in Georgia and South Carolina, too.
Scenes from Florida: Along the Gulf Coast, waves slammed bridges and slapped into partially submerged buildings. Falling trees knocked down power lines. The National Weather Service urged people in Tallahassee to “TAKE COVER NOW!” See photos.
A storm-related death: A 4-year-old girl was killed in a car crash in Catawba County, N.C., according to officials. She was riding in a car that veered over a roadway’s centerline and crashed into oncoming traffic in the rain.
More on the stormImage
See maps of the expected flooding and of Helene’s path.
People across the Southeast are bracing for the storm’s arrival in the coming hours and days. Read what to expect.
We have tips to keep you safe and guidance for how to prep food for an emergency.
Florida’s Gulf Coast region has endured two other hurricanes recently, but even veterans left ahead of Helene.
“We are smack dab in the middle of the eye of Helene and it is so quiet, you can hear the crickets chirping and frogs croaking,” our reporter, Judson Jones, wrote.
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