Tropical Storm Helene strengthens over Florida and Mexico

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and STEPHEN SMITH

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Powerful Hurricane Helene inundated parts of Mexico on Wednesday as it moved along a path that forecasters said would produce a potentially catastrophic storm with a storm surge that could engulf entire homes. That dire warning sent residents fleeing to higher ground, schools closing and a state of emergency being declared across the Southeast.

Helene’s center was about 450 miles (735 kilometers) southwest of Tampa, Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane is expected to intensify and accelerate as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico toward Big Bend on Florida’s northwest coast. It will make landfall sometime Thursday evening, and the hurricane center said it could be a major Category 4 storm with winds over 130 mph (208 kph) by then.

Tropical storm conditions were expected in South Florida Wednesday evening, moving northward and affecting the rest of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina by Thursday night. The storm moved northward at 12 mph, reaching peak winds of 87 mph Wednesday evening.

Helene could trigger a life-threatening storm surge of up to 6.1 meters in parts of the Big Bend region, meteorologists said. The tropical storm-force winds would spread up to 555 kilometers from the center of the storm.

The fast-moving storm’s wind and rain could also reach far inland: The Hurricane Center issued hurricane warnings as far as Georgia and tropical storm warnings as far as North Carolina. It also warned that large parts of the Southeast could experience prolonged power outages, downed trees and dangerous flooding.

“Just hope and pray that everyone is safe,” said Connie Dillard of Tallahassee as she shopped at a grocery store whose shelves of water and bread were thinning before heading out of town on the highway. “That’s all you can do.”

An insurance company, Gallagher Re, expects billions of dollars in damage in the US. Around 18,000 electricians from other states have been stationed in Florida to help restore power. Airports in St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa were to be closed on Thursday, and 62 hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities evacuated their residents on Wednesday.

Georgia has activated 250 National Guard troops for rapid deployment. Game wardens, forest rangers and corrections teams will assist with whitewater rescues and other emergency response efforts.

Meteorologist Will Lanxton said tropical storm-force winds are expected across Georgia. Lanxton said the Atlanta metropolitan area has not seen sustained tropical storm-force winds since Hurricane Irma in 2017.

“I think we’re going to see some significant power outages, probably like never before, because the outages affect 159 counties,” said James Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.

In Tallahassee, where gas stations ran out of gas, 19-year-old Florida A&M student Kameron Benjamin and his roommate filled sandbags to protect their apartment from evacuation. Their school and Florida State University were forced to close.

“This hurricane is heading straight toward Tallahassee, so I really don’t know what to expect,” Benjamin said.

As Big Bend residents barricaded their homes, many saw the ghost of 2018’s Hurricane Michael. That storm rapidly intensified and crashed ashore as a Category 5, devastating Panama City and parts of the rural Panhandle. On Wednesday, the National Weather Service issued an urgent warning for Apalachee Bay residents:

“There is a risk of a catastrophic and unsurvivable storm surge for Apalachee Bay,” it said. “Storm surge could arrive as early as late Wednesday evening, downwind. This forecast, if it comes true, is a nightmarish storm scenario for Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take all evacuation orders seriously!”

“People are taking note and heading to higher ground,” said Kristin Korinko, a Tallahassee resident who serves as commodore of the Shell Point Sailboard Club on the Gulf Coast about 30 miles south of Tallahassee.

Robbie Berg, national warning coordinator for the Hurricane Center, advises hardy Floridians who are accustomed to hurricanes: “Please do not compare this storm to other storms you have experienced in the last year or two.”

Helene is expected to be one of the strongest storms in the region, said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. He said only three Gulf hurricanes since 1988 have been larger than Helene’s predicted size: Irma in 2017, Wilma in 2005 and Opal in 1995.

Hurricane-level winds are expected in areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida border. Classes have been canceled in more than half of Georgia’s public schools and at several universities.

And for Atlanta, which is currently under a tropical storm warning, Helene could be the worst storm to hit a major inland southern city in 35 years, said Marshall Shepherd, a professor of meteorology at the University of Georgia.

“It will be similar to Hugo in Charlotte,” Shepherd said of the 1989 storm that hit the North Carolina city and left 85 percent of homes without power because of hurricane-force wind gusts.

Landslides were possible in the southern Appalachians, and catastrophic flooding was forecast in the Carolinas and Georgia, where all three governors had declared states of emergency. Rainfall is even possible in Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as Helene passed between the peninsula and the western tip of Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm formed in the Caribbean on Tuesday and flooded streets and downed trees as it passed offshore, brushing against the resort city of Cancun.

In Cuba, authorities moved livestock to higher ground and medical brigades went into communities often cut off by storms. The government shut off electricity in some communities as a precaution when waves up to five meters high crashed into Cortes Bay. In the Cayman Islands, schools remained closed while residents pumped water from flooded homes.

In the United States, federal authorities provided generators, food and water, and formed search and rescue and power restoration teams.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned that Helene could reach the strength of a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall. The state provided buses to evacuate people in the Big Bend region and take them to emergency shelters in Tallahassee.

But near central Florida, outside Orlando, Walt Disney World announced that only the Typhoon Lagoon water park and its mini golf courses would be closed on Thursday.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year due to record-high ocean temperatures.

Tropical Storm Isaac, the ninth named storm of the season, formed in the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday evening and is expected to strengthen as it moves eastward, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, meteorologists said, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

In the Pacific, former Hurricane John strengthened into a tropical storm on Wednesday and intensified while threatening parts of Mexico’s west coast. Authorities issued hurricane warnings for southwestern Mexico.

John struck the country’s southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering landslides and damaging homes and trees. Within hours, it strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane and made landfall east of Acapulco. After weakening inland, it reemerged over the ocean.

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Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report. Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.

Originally published: September 24, 2024 at 10:41 p.m.