Extremely dangerous four. It s more than 400 miles across, pushing a storm surge that officials are calling unsurvivable is now hitting florida s gulf coast as much as 20 feet of water what are forecast along the shore south of tallahassee, which itself is expected to take a direct blow. Some coastal areas already flooding. Take a look live pictures right now from gulfport in tampa on the right interstate to 70 prison biden this evening, urge anyone in the storm s path that take it extremely seriously. A lot of water there is certainly there graham gulfport, especially emergency managers and florida s taylor county are telling people choosing to stay and there are people choosing to stay to write her name and date of birth on a leg to help identify their bodies. Storm warnings are now in effect as far north as charlotte, north carolina. We ve got cnn correspondents all along the places now harm s way in chad myers in the cnn weather center, let s start with cnn meteorologist derek van
Now i ll see you tomorrow evening. I m kaitlan collins. This is the source hurricane helene is about to slam into florida and i expected to make landfall and just a couple of hours from now, it s now an extremely dangerous category four storm and winds are now up to 140 miles per hour. If it stays this strong, it ll be the strongest storm to ever make landfall in florida s big bend region. That s the area that we re keeping a close eye on. This hour, more than half 1 million people there have already lost power. And forecasters are predicting tonight that the storm surge in some areas could be unsurvivable reaching as high as 20 feet surges and high winds were already the reason for the closures of several major bridges in the tampa area that we saw tonight? officials, there are telling residents to shelter in place, that it is going to get worse and don t go outside. Emergency managers and one florida county are being so blunt with their warnings for those who are in low lying areas a
Cnn breaking news good evening. I m abby phillip in new york. Our special coverage continues tonight of hurricane helene, a monster category four storm that is now moments away from making landfall in florida. At this moment, it was too late now for folks along the coast too evacuate. Officials warned that the winds and the storm surge will be be catastrophic in some areas, the word that they are using is unsurvivable helene could be the strongest storm on record for the big bend region. And we are already starting to see a major surge in these cities. So we have our anchors and our correspondents. They re fanned out as the storm is now hitting and we have chad myers as well with the latest forecast in the cnn weather center. Let s go first to john berman. He s out in tallahassee in the socalled dead on a hit zone, john, what s happening where you are right now? yeah the winds have really started to pick up abby over the last half an hour. The rain really coming down here, you can see
Tallahassee within the next few hours. Now, right now, helene is an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. So, for more than 545,000 households in florida, they are reportedly without power and thousands have been ordered to evacuate from their homes. As you can see from these satellite images, helene is huge and is expected to affect nearly the entire state of florida with damaging winds and heavy rain. So, what may bring the most danger are the storm surges. Earlier today, residents experienced flooding in places like pine island, which is just outside of fort myers. But, flooding will likely get much worse across the state as the night continues. A storm surge warning is in place for almost the entirety of florida s west coast. This video is a simulation of what could happen if the storm surge rises to approximately 10 feet. But, in some parts of florida, officials look worn that a hurricane helene could cause storm surges of up
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