A huge Hurricane Helene is expected to hit Florida as a major storm and strike far inland

An enormous Hurricane Helene swamped parts of Mexico on Wednesday as it churned on a path forecasters said would take it to Florida as a major storm with a surge that could swallow entire homes. The chilling warning sent residents scrambling for higher ground as states of emergency were declared throughout the Southeast.
Helene’s center was about 460 miles southwest of Tampa, Fla., Wednesday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, and the storm was expected to intensify and expand as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico before landfall Thursday.
“Just hope and pray that everybody’s safe,” Connie Dillard of Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, said at a grocery store as she shopped the thinning shelves to stock up for a drive out of town. “That’s all you can do.”
The hurricane could create a storm surge as high as 18 feet in places, forecasters said, with wind and rain expected far inland.
One insurance firm, Gallagher Re, is expecting billions of dollars in damage in the U.S. Some 18,000 linemen from out of state were staging in Florida, ready to help restore power. Airports in St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa were planning to close on Thursday, and 62 hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities evacuated their residents Wednesday.
Helene was moving north at 12 mph with top sustained winds of 85 mph and was expected to intensify over the warm waters of the gulf. Forecasters said it should become a major Category 3 or higher hurricane Thursday with winds above 110 mph. Its center is projected to hit Florida’s Big Bend area, the curving stretch of gulf coastline in the state’s north.
In Tallahassee, about 25 miles inland, 19-year-old Florida A&M student Kameron Benjamin and his roommate filled sandbags to protect their apartment before evacuating. Their school closed, as did Florida State University, and the city’s gas stations had started to run out of fuel.
“This hurricane is heading straight to Tallahassee, so I really don’t know what to expect,” Benjamin said.
As Big Bend residents battened down their homes, many saw the ghost of 2018’s Hurricane Michael. That storm rapidly intensified and crashed ashore as a Category 5 that laid waste to Panama City and parts of the Panhandle.
“People are taking heed and hightailing it out of there for higher ground,” said Kristin Korinko, a Tallahassee resident who serves as the commodore of the Shell Point Sailboard Club.
In Crawfordville, Fla., Will Glenn spent most of Wednesday boarding up his windows and gathering family mementos before evacuating. “This could be it,” he said.
For toughened Floridians who are used to hurricanes, Robbie Berg, a national warning coordinator for the hurricane center, advised: “Please do not compare it to other storms you may have experienced over the past year or two.”
With tropical storm-force winds extending up to 345 miles from its center, Helene is forecast to be one of the largest storms in breadth in seven years to hit the gulf region, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.
He said that since 1988, only three Gulf of Mexico hurricanes were bigger than Helene is expected to become: 2017’s Irma, 2005’s Wilma and 1995’s Opal.
“By every measure this makes it worse,” University of Miami senior hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said. “Places that are not used to experiencing hurricanes are going to experience one.’’
Areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line can expect hurricane conditions, officials said. Nearly half of Georgia’s public school districts have canceled classes.
And for Atlanta, which is under a tropical storm watch, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd.
“It’s going to be a lot like Hugo in Charlotte,” Shepherd said of the 1989 storm that struck the North Carolina city, knocking out power to 85% of customers as winds gusted above hurricane force.
Landslides were possible in southern Appalachia, with catastrophic flooding predicted in the Carolinas and Georgia, where all three governors declared emergencies. Rainfall is possible as far away as Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana.
Parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula were under hurricane warnings as Helene wound between it and the western tip of Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm formed Tuesday in the Caribbean, and it flooded streets and toppled trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun.
In Cuba, authorities moved cattle to higher ground and medical brigades went to communities often cut off by storms. The government shut off power in some communities as waves as high as 16 feet slammed Cortes Bay. In the Cayman Islands, schools remained closed as residents pumped water from flooded homes.
In the U.S., federal authorities positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that Helene could be as strong as a Category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall late Thursday and quickly plows through the Tallahassee area.
The state was providing buses to evacuate people in the Big Bend region and take them to shelters in Tallahassee.
But in central Florida, Walt Disney World said its only closures Thursday would be Typhoon Lagoon water park and its miniature golf courses.
Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. Since 2000, eight major hurricanes have made landfall in Florida, said Klotzbach. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.
In the Pacific, former Hurricane John re-formed Wednesday as a tropical storm and was strengthening as it threatened areas of Mexico’s western coast anew. Officials issued hurricane watches for it, too.
John had hit the country’s southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering mudslides and damaging homes and trees. It grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours and made landfall east of Acapulco. It weakened after moving inland but later reemerged over the ocean.
Hollingsworth and Smith write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report. Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kan.