Originally Published: 25 SEP 24 02:58 ET
Updated: 25 SEP 24 11:54 ET
By Mary Gilbert, Taylor Ward and Dalia Faheid, CNN
(CNN) — Helene rapidly intensified into a hurricane Wednesday as it plows toward a Florida landfall as the strongest hurricane to hit the US in over a year.
The storm will also grow into a massive, sprawling monster as it continues to intensify, one that won’t just slam Florida, but also much of the Southeast.
Time is running out for those in the US to prepare. Thousands of Florida residents have already been forced to evacuate and nearly the entire state is under tropical alerts as the storm threatens to unleash flooding rainfall, damaging winds and life-threatening storm surge.
Helene is on track to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast — likely in the Big Bend region — late Thursday. It could be a Category 3 major hurricane when it reaches the coast, strengthened considerably by the extremely warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. Rapidly intensifying storms like Helene are becoming more frequent in a world warming due to fossil fuel pollution.
The hurricane will be the fourth to make landfall in the US this year and the fifth storm to slam storm-weary Florida since 2022.
“If you’re a godly person, pray, because I don’t really need this,” Port Richey resident Rick Way told CNN affiliate WFTS of the potential flooding Helene could bring. “Neither do any of us.”
But this storm will be different than Hurricane Idalia and other recent storms to strike the state.
Helene is forecast to grow into one of the largest storms in the Gulf of Mexico over the last century, according to hurricane expert Michael Lowry. That means more storm surge and more widespread impacts, even with the center of the storm well away from the coast.
The sheriff in Taylor County on Florida’s Big Bend echoed that sentiment: “This system will be unlike anything we have experienced to date,” the office said.
The storm’s sprawl will bring rain and tropical-storm force wind gusts to parts of the Florida Keys as soon as Wednesday afternoon and spread north and east across the state from there, reaching the Tampa area by Wednesday night.
Tropical rainfall and strong gusts could spread over a large portion of the Peninsula by Thursday morning. Hurricane-force wind gusts will follow closely behind for areas along the coast, including in the Tampa area by Thursday night.
The storm’s size will also increase the risk of life-threatening storm surge as it nears landfall Thursday evening. Multiple feet of surge flooding are possible for nearly all of Florida’s Gulf Coast, a threat that has forced mandatory evacuations in at least 15 coastal Florida counties.
The Big Bend area faces the most serious storm surge: up to 15 feet of it is possible. Up to 8 feet of surge could inundate Tampa, and threaten high water records in the area, while much of South Florida could get up to 5 feet.
And the storm won’t stop at Florida’s coast.
Helene is huge and threatens the Southeast
Coastal areas typically bear the brunt of a hurricane, but that might not be the case with Helene.
Tropical alerts span hundreds of miles from South Florida to central Georgia and southern South Carolina because of its size.
Hurricanes typically lose strength quickly once they move over land, where they lose the warm water that feeds them, but Helene will remain more intact well inland because it will be both strong at landfall and moving quickly.
As a result, the storm is forecast to still be a hurricane in Georgia Friday morning, nearly 150 miles from where it makes landfall.
That’s bad news for Tallahassee, Florida, just inland from where the storm is forecast to make landfall. City officials warned Helene “could be the worst storm in the history of the City of Tallahassee.”
“If our community remains central in Helene’s path, as forecasted, we will see unprecedented damage like nothing we have ever experienced before as a community,” Tallahassee mayor John E. Dailey said Wednesday.
The storm is currently forecast to pass just to the west of Tallahassee as a 125 mph Category 3 storm. If it does so, it’ll be the strongest storm on record to track within 30 miles of the city since the late 1800s.
The storm’s damaging winds will spread outward hundreds of miles from its center and increase the risk of power outages and flooding, torrential rain well inland starting late Wednesday even before the hurricane’s center comes ashore.
By Thursday evening, tropical storm-force winds will spread over more of the Southeast and, along with soaking rainfall, could bring down trees and trigger widespread power outages. Atlanta could have wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph during the day Thursday that strengthen to 50 to 60 mph overnight.
Helene could produce historic flooding in mountainous areas of the Southeast far removed from the coast. Flooding caused by rainfall has become the deadliest threat of tropical systems in the last decade.
The storm will combine with heavy rain ahead of it Wednesday to raise concerns of “widespread impactful flooding” including “potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding,” the Weather Prediction Center warned Wednesday.
A level 3 of 4 risk of flooding rainfall is in place Thursday for portions of Florida and Georgia – including Atlanta – Alabama and the Carolinas. A rare level 4 of 4 high risk encompasses a smaller area from northeastern Georgia to the far western Carolinas, where more than a foot of rain could fall through Friday.
The potential for “major to catastrophic flooding” is becoming more likely where the heaviest rain falls, the National Weather Service in Greenville, South Carolina, warned Wednesday.
Helene could also produce multiple tornadoes in the Southeast. A level 3 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms is in place for parts of southern Georgia and South Carolina Thursday, mainly due to the potential for tornadoes.
But the threat isn’t limited to just that area – Helene could produce a tornado anywhere from Florida through much of the Carolinas Thursday.
Florida and the Southeast brace for Impact
Preparations ahead of Helene got underway early this week. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expanded a state of emergency declaration to 61 of the state’s 71 counties Tuesday while Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also declared a state of emergency. These declarations help expedite preparations and coordination between state and local governments ahead of the storm’s arrival.
At least 3,000 members of the Florida National Guard are ready to assist with storm efforts and the Florida State Guard has been activated, DeSantis confirmed at a news conference Tuesday. Additionally, the state has “hundreds of Starlinks” to deploy in case internet access is lost, according to DeSantis.
Officials in neighboring Pinellas County warned hundreds of homes would likely flood with a higher storm surge than in past destructive storms.
“This storm is much larger than Idalia and Eta, and for Idalia, portions of our county had over 4 feet of storm surge and we had over 1,500 homes flooded,” Pinellas County emergency management director Cathie Perkins said in a Tuesday news conference. “If you experienced flooding for Eta and Idalia and the Christmas storm we had, you’re most likely going to have flooding in your area again.”
Several school districts along Florida’s Gulf Coast – including those in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Sarasota counties – have announced closures ahead of the storm’s impacts. Several of the state’s universities have also announced closures.
The repeated blows have pushed Florida’s insurance market to the brink, with insurers pulling out of the state because of the increasing risk of extreme weather due to climate change.
In Georgia, officials warned residents to prepare for a wind event that will affect all 159 counties throughout the state.
“The old saying in emergency response is – you run from water, you hide from wind,” Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency Director James Stallings said in a news conference Tuesday, adding people should ensure their emergency supplies will enable them to be safe for up to 72 hours in case power or water goes out.
Helene comes as Florida’s Big Bend region is still recovering from several recent hurricanes. Hurricane Debby slammed the region in early August as a Category 1 storm and recovery efforts are still ongoing as the region braces for another blow. Idalia – the last hurricane to make landfall in the US at Category 3 – also came ashore in the Big Bend region in August last year and generated a record-breaking storm surge from Tampa to the Big Bend.
Way said he would spend Tuesday afternoon sandbagging around his home, in an area flooded by Idalia last year.
“You see the proximity of where we are to the water. There are other people across the street and elsewhere on this street that got a foot to 3 feet of water,” Way told WFTS. “It didn’t matter whether it was 3 feet or 6 inches. It still got us.”
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