“Impacts from Hurricane Michael along the Florida Panhandle will include a risky storm surge, flooding rainfall and damaging winds”.
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“Let me be clear, Hurricane Michael is a monstrous storm”, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said during a media conference Tuesday morning.
Coastal residents have rushed to board up their homes and stock up on bottled water and other supplies. It signifies how high the water reached during Hurricane Dennis in 2005.
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”. “Until the water comes up, were just waiting”.
“If they decide to stay, there will be a point where we can’t get to them”, Couch said. Michael was now a category one hurricane. A hurricane warning is in effect for Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday issued a tropical storm warning for Quitman County, about an hour’s drive south of Columbus, while a tropical storm watch includes the Georgia counties of Chattahoochee, Marion, Schley, Sumter, Taylor and Webster, as well as Barbour County (Eufaula) in Alabama, south of Columbus and Phenix City. By Friday (Oct. 12), the storm will make its way out over the northern Atlantic, NOAA is now predicting.
The storm is expected to undergo rapid intensification again Tuesday.
A neighbors text sent Steve Hassen, 55, rushing back to his home on W Maritana Drive. “But water levels in some parts of the Northeast Florida coast will still be high enough to overwhelm the dunes, which are relatively low and narrow”.
Annette Strickland, 75, arrived at a Tallahassee high school.
As of Tuesday evening, Michael had 120mph winds, and it still had another 18 hours or so over open water to intensify before interactions with the U.S. landmass would force some weakening.
Michael is expected to sweep up the East Coast, and tropical storm-force winds were projected to reach the state Thursday, according to the center’s projections. An average hurricane season has 12 named storms.
The advisories for Hurricane Michael as of October 9, 2018. “We don’t know. And we don’t know exactly where it’s going to hit yet”. The ones that emerge into the gulf usually head straight north and slam into Florida, because “its in the way”, he said. Forecasters said Michael could be the strongest hurricane in 12 years to hit the stretch of coastline from Pensacola to Tampa. The worst storm surge is expected between Mexico Beach and Keaton Beach, where nine to 13 feet of inundation is possible, forecasters warned.
The storm is likely also to dump prodigious amounts of rain over Florida, Alabama and Georgia as well as the Carolinas, which are still reeling from severe flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. In the days following Hurricane Irma past year, 14 people died after a South Florida nursing home lost power and air conditioning. The Florida national guard has over 4,000 more guard members available for deployment, according to Scott.
“My expectation is if you’re responsible for a patient, you’re responsible for the patient”.
Both NOAA and Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft have flown through the hurricane’s four quadrants – and the NHC says, “The planes actually passed through the eye around the same time [Tuesday morning], and reported that they could see one another”.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, Florida’s Democratic nominee for governor, had planned to campaign in South Florida on Monday and Tuesday, but instead threw himself into helping his city’s residents fill sandbags and make other preparations.
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He said that forecasters aren’t expecting the same kind of major river flooding caused by Florence, and conditions should improve on Friday.
