While he said he doesn’t expect the same kind of widespread damage, he warned that tropical weather is “nothing to mess with”. Lesser amounts are forecast further up the Atlantic Coast, because the storm is expected to veer out to sea.
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The city of St. Petersburg was littered with downed palm fronds and tree branches, and low-lying streets were flooded. Other rain totals include 10.73 inches in Seminole, 9.71 inches in Longboat Key and 8.61 inches in Port Richey.
As Hermine moved north, Georgia Power estimated about 19,000 homes and businesses were without power statewide early Friday. Georgia Power reported around 6:30 a.m. that more than 30,000 of its customers were without power in and around the cities of Valdosta and Brunswick.
McElroy said JEA crews have been trimming trees in advance and removing debris and other objects from construction sites.
Hermine was moving toward the north-northeast near 12 miles per hour and this motion with a slight increase in forward speed is expected during the next day or so.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in parts of five counties in northwestern Florida, with voluntary evacuations in at least three more counties.
In Wakulla County, south of Tallahassee, a couple suffered minor injuries during the storm when they drove into a tree that had fallen in the road, County Administrator Dustin Hinkel said early Friday.
Director Jim Butterworth said the storm could bring flooding, tornadoes and power outages even if it does not make landfall in Georgia.
In Florida, life-threatening flooding remains a risk as rain has pounded the Gulf Coast since Wednesday. Pasco County Fire Rescue and sheriff’s deputies used high-water vehicles early Friday to rescue people from rising water. Nearby, folks stood gawking at the abnormally large waves and took selfies ahead of the storm.
“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”, the National Hurricane Center said.
Morrison says the eastern part of the state could be hit with heavy rains and tropical storm or hurricane-force winds starting Friday night.
The US National Hurricane Centre said the storm’s maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 70mph with additional weakening forecast.
The storm is on a track to pass just north of the island chain and the eye of the storm isn’t expected to make landfall.
Police block the road entering Cedar Key, Fla., as Hurricane Hermine nears the Florida coast, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016.
After pushing through Georgia, Hermine is expected to move into the Carolinas and up the East Coast with the potential for heavy rain and deadly flooding.
As Hurricane Hermine strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico, it sent heavy squalls with its outer bands over Gulf coast beaches.
It made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in the Big Bend area on the Gulf Coast where the state’s peninsula meets the Panhandle.
At 5 a.m. Thursday, the center of storm was about 275 miles west-southwest of Tampa.
As Tropical Storm Hermine aims toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, residents in the Big Bend area are getting ready for possible storm surge and heavy rain.
Forecasters say Hurricane Hermine has made landfall over northwest Florida just east of St. Marks.
The Category 1 storm hit just east of St. Marks around 1:30 a.m. EDT with winds around 80 miles per hour, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Some 70,000 households in Tallahassee, the state capital, were left without power, Reuters reported, adding that thousands more households across the state were affected, too. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form.
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For more information about hurricane preparedness, please visit the Talbot County DES website at www.talbotdes.org or follow Talbot DES on Facebook.
