Hundreds of schools and government offices announced closures as the state braced for the storm’s full impact on Friday.
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The National Hurricane Center says Hermine has strengthened to a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds increasing to near 75 miles per hour. Rain will overspread the area early Friday and become heavy by mid morning and last through the evening. “It’s a home on stilts so I put everything upstairs”. She says she hopes the two boats in their boathouse are still safe. The system will weaken to tropical storm strength on Friday as it moves through southern Georgia and into southern SC through the day on Friday. Lesser amounts were forecast farther up the Atlantic Coast, because the storm was expected to veer out to sea.
Strong thunderstorms moved through Charleston early Friday although no downtown streets were immediately closed because of flooding. “Scattered power outages likely”. Rain will be widespread and heavy, especially on Saturday and some areas could see 6+ inches of rain.
U.S. 98 in Eastpoint, Florida, as Hurricane Hermine approaches. City crews struggled to keep up with demand for sand for
filling sandbags.
Overnight: Mostly cloudy with a lingering shower or storm (25%).
The warning covers an area that extends from Marineland, Florida, northward to the South Santee River in SC.
“We’ll get some rain out of this”, said Kevin Cadima, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton. He said an unknown number were taken to area hospitals with injuries that weren’t thought to be life-threatening.
“I’ve never seen it this high, it’s pretty damn insane”, Chason said.
Pinellas and Sarasota counties are under a coastal flood advisory.
As Hermine moved north, Georgia Power estimated about 19,000 homes and businesses were without power state-wide.
Georgia Power’s online outage map showed that numerous outages were in and around the cities of Valdosta and Brunswick. Power outages and downed trees were reported in several Florida counties.
Cedar Key was evacuated hours ago, but some people made a decision to stick out the storm because they do not expect it to get too bad, but officials said this will be the worst storm in years.
Mr Scott ordered evacuations in five counties in Florida’s north-west and called for voluntary evacuations in three other coastal counties. Pasco County Fire Rescue and sheriff’s deputies used high-water vehicles early Friday to rescue people from rising water.
Swells were already strong on New Jersey and DE shores earlier this week because of Hurricane Gaston churning near the center of the Atlantic, as well as a tropical depression off the coast that dissipated in the Atlantic early Thursday.
Many roads in the area north of Tampa, are also flooded.
A hurricane warning is in effect for Florida’s Big Bend from the Suwannee River to Mexico Beach.
After slowing down on Wednesday Hermine had picked up speed on Thursday morning and and was moving north-northeast at 12 miles per hour. “We have not had a hurricane in years, people have moved here and we have visitors”.
Hermine is the first powerful hurricane to strike Florida in 11 years. “We’re going to see landfall about 2 a.m”.
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Forecasters said the storm could create a 3.6-meter (12-feet) ocean surge and dump as much as 51 centimeters (20 inches) of rain in some parts of the state.
