As of 8 a.m. EDT Friday, Hermine was weakening as it moved into southern Georgia, with maximum sustained winds of 60 miles per hour, the Hurricane Center said.
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As Hermine moved north, Georgia Power estimated about 19,000 homes and businesses were without power statewide early Friday.
Taylor County Commissioner Jody DeVane says Tropical Storm Hermine left lots of property damage in the community in Florida’s Big Bend area. Injuries were reported in Tallahassee as trees fell onto homes. Police had blocked the road and wouldn’t let anyone through.
Cindy Simpson was waiting near her auto, hoping her beach home and boats had made it. “It’s a home on stilts so I put everything upstairs”.
In Tallahassee, high winds knocked trees onto several houses injuring residents inside, fire-rescue spokesman Mike Bellamy said.
Florida Governor Rick Scott said the storm could lead to deaths and told residents to stay indoors until it had passed.
Tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 175 miles from the storm’s center, the NHC said, warning that “the combination of a unsafe storm surge and the tide will continue to cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline”.
Virtually all of SC is under some sort of weather warning – tropical storm warnings near the coast to high wind warnings farther inland.
Strong thunderstorms moved through Charleston early Friday although no downtown streets were immediately closed because of flooding.
The storm is expected to gradually weaken over the next two days.
After 11 long years, a very powerful hurricane will make a landfall in the state of Florida.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum said Friday that power outages were “pretty ubiquitous” in Florida’s capital city.
Almost 100,000 customers across the affected area have already lost power. “Mostly anxious about washing out the roads and a few of the homes in low-lying areas”. “These rains may cause life-threatening flash flooding”, the NHC said.
Georgia Power’s online outage map showed that numerous outages were in and around the cities of Valdosta and Brunswick. Many of those were in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County, about 15 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line.
Hermine was moving north-northeast across south Georgia at 14 miles per hour toward Savannah on the coast.
A couple suffered minor injuries during Hurricane Hermine when they drove into a downed tree along the coast of the Florida Panhandle.
The surge of ocean water could be as high as 9 feet above normal levels, forecasters said, as authorities warned its effect was not limited to Florida.
Weather officials predict Hermine will cross Georgia and the Carolinas, and could bring heavy rains along the East Coast over Labour Day Weekend. They were taken to a nearby shelter.
“This motion is expected to continue today and Saturday”, the center said.
Many roads in the area north of Tampa, are also flooded. Just before 5 a.m. Friday, Hermine was downgraded to a tropical storm.
The Category 1 storm had hit just east of St Marks, Florida, with winds of around 80mph, according to the National Hurricane Centre.
The storm is centered about 20 miles west of Valdosta, Georgia, and is moving north-northeast near 14 mph.
Many took no chances with Hermine.
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Hurricane conditions are possible over Hawaii and Maui counties and Oahu on Saturday, including high wind, large swells and heavy rain, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center reported, and those areas are under a Hurricane Watch.
