The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Hermine could almost stall out at sea off the mid-Atlantic states Sunday through Wednesday morning.
Advertisement
Though maximum sustained winds had weakened to 80kph, the tempest headed to the Atlantic seaboard along a path where tens of millions of Americans live, prompting storm watches and warnings stretching as far north as Rhode Island, NHC said.
The storm is moving north-northeast near 14 miles per hour with the potential for drenching rain and deadly flooding.
The storm won’t be devastating on the order of Hurricane Sandy.
As of 5am yesterday morning, Hermine was weakening as it moved into southern Georgia, the Hurricane
Centre said.
Tropical storm-force winds extended up to 281km from the storm’s centre, the NHC said, warning that “the combination of a risky 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”.
A Florida man sleeping in a tent in Marion County was killed when a tree fell on him.
Some 70,000 people in rain-drenched Tallahassee were left without power. It swept across the Everglades and struck heavily populated south Florida, causing five deaths in the state and an estimated $23 billion (£17bn) in damage.
Many took no chances with Hermine. A gust of 47 miles per hour had been recorded earlier Friday afternoon at Springmaid Pier in Myrtle Beach.
“We’ve dodged bullet after bullet after bullet”, Mr Duffy said, but added that Hermine has taken “dead aim” at the city, where blustery winds sent trees swaying before dawn.
The Weather Channel is tracking the storm as it makes its way up the coast.
“I’ve never seen it this high, it’s pretty damn insane. I’ve been in this area for 30 years but I’ve never seen it like this”, Ms Chason said.
“We’re looking at storm surges along the beaches at three to six feet”, from Monmouth down to Cape May, she said. Typically flood-prone areas, low lying areas, retention ponds, and small creeks and streams would be most likely areas of flooding will see flooding issues through the night.
Florida’s Big Bend area has a marshy coastline and extends from just east of the Apalachicola River in the Panhandle to roughly the Cedar Key area, which is west of Gainesville.
Advertisement
The path of the storm, which smashed into Florida’s Panhandle as a Category 1 hurricane Friday morning, is projected to move through coastal SC during the day, through the North Carolina coast Friday night and head into the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.
