A Huge Hurricane

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 surge, 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.)Serious 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.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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