“We do know for sure that we will feel very serious effects from this storm”.
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Meteorologist Daniel Noah of the National Weather Service in Tampa says the rain should start slowing by Friday afternoon. He said an unknown number were taken to area hospitals with injuries that weren’t thought to be life-threatening.
In Florida’s capital, toppled trees in Tallahassee also downed power lines and injured people in their homes. Up to 17 inches of rain fell in the area over the last two days. The Weather Channel was reporting as many as 70,000 people without power.
Georgia Power’s online outage map showed that numerous outages were in and around the cities of Valdosta and Brunswick.
A homeless man in Marion County, south of Gainesville, was killed when he was hit by a tree, Goverrnor Rick Scott said at a news conference.
Tropical Storm Hermine drenched the Carolinas as it churned toward the East Coast, knocking down trees and causing blackouts as the holiday weekend kicked off. “The strong winds are moving in from the south-southwest so storm surge is ongoing from the Big Bend down to Citrus, Hernando and Pasco counties where all this water is being shoved up against the sea walls”.
There’s also the chance for tidal flooding and beach erosion. Pasco County Fire Rescue and sheriff’s deputies used high-water vehicles early Friday to rescue people from rising water.
Hurricane Hermine may have been downgraded to a tropical storm after it made landfall in Florida this morning, but that isn’t preventing NY from being extra cautious.
The remains of a snapped telephone pole and its transformer block a road in the rain and wind from Hurricane Hermine in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. September 2, 2016.
The storm is expected to cross over southeastern Georgia during the day Friday, pass the coastal Carolinas overnight and move out over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center says.
“Anyone along the US East Coast needs to be paying close attention this weekend”, NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
Clouds from the system’s northern edge have already moved into New Hampshire, some 530 miles north of the storm’s center.
Hermine’s maximum sustained winds Thursday morning were near 65 miles per hour (100 kph).
Hermine moved ashore early Friday morning in Florida, and pushed its way through Georgia during the rest of the early part of Friday.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in parts of five counties in northwestern Florida, with voluntary evacuations in at least three more counties.
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The latest weather model Saturday morning showed the heaviest rains falling Saturday and Sunday.
