In this image made from a video, rough surf smashes against a dock as Hurricane Hermine nears the Florida coast, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, in Carabelle, Fla. The storm intensified to hurricane status as expected Thursday, with 75 miles per hour sustained winds and a well formed eye evident on satellite and radar images. The storm is considered life threatening and Florida state officials are taking the threat seriously. “It’s going to be a lot of risk”.
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Between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., Hermine will move across SC right down I-95.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency for 56 counties.
Director Jim Butterworth said the storm could bring flooding, tornadoes and power outages even if it does not make landfall in Georgia.
The track thereafter is uncertain (near the coast vs. offshore), but Hermine will impact the Labour Day long weekend along the coast with unsafe surf, gusty winds and possibly rain (depending on track), according to The Weather Network meteorologist Doug Gillham.
Meteorologist Faye Barthold of the National Weather Service said the NY area would start feeling the effects late Saturday.
The National Hurricane Center said the storm’s top sustained winds clocked 80 miles per hour (130 kph) by nightfall after the former tropical storm gained strength.
In St. Petersburg, Joanna Crandell said the water in the canal next to her home was a foot over the sea wall. With the ground so wet, they anxious that falling trees would take out power lines.
Tallahassee is also bracing for the storm, as all classes at Florida State University, Florida A&M University and Tallahassee Community College have been cancelled for the rest of the week. Georgia Southern in Statesboro said it was closing, as did Albany State University and Darton State College.
And rain from Hermine could spread up the East Coast as well.
Tropical Storm Hermine strengthened into a hurricane Thursday and steamed toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Madeline battered the state Wednesday with heavy rains and strong winds.
NEXT WEEK: Lows in the 70s, highs in the lower 90s and rain chances climbing to 30 percent by mid-week.
Hermine is expected to produce storm total rainfall accumulations of 5 to 10 inches over portions of northwest Florida and southern Georgia through Friday, with possible isolated maximum amounts of 15 inches.
Residents in other low-lying, flood-prone areas were also being asked to evacuate as storm surges were expected to top 8 feet.
Flooding is expected across a wide swath of the Big Bend area, which has a mostly marshy coastline.
“Feeder bands are now approximately 200 miles off shore and we expect them coming in this afternoon, and we expect a lot more rain coming through tonight, probably up to the midnight hour”, Hermey said. He sent his wife and daughter into the nearby town of Perry. The NWS advises that there will likely be damage to the roofs and siding of some houses, and large trees may be uprooted. It left 70,000 households in the state capital Tallahassee and thousands more elsewhere without power. Hermine will be the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 11 years since Wilma hit south Florida in 2005. It swept across the Everglades and struck heavily populated south Florida, causing five deaths in the state and an estimated $23 billion in damage.
The storm is set to hit Florida on late Thursday into Friday.
Residents took shelter overnight as it bore down on the region, some boarding up windows and filling sandbags to keep water away.
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On Cedar Key, a small island, about a dozen people were going from storefront to storefront putting up shutters and nailing pieces of plywood to protect businesses from the wind.
