Florida facing biggest hurricane threat in a decade
‘Life-threatening’ sea surge expected with waves topping three metres and winds reaching 200kmh
FLORIDA’S northern Gulf Coast faces its most serious hurricane threat in more than a decade.
The intensifying storm – Hurricane Michael – was expected to make landfall today with conditions deteriorating last night.
Florida’s Panhandle, from Pensacola to Apalachicola, and its Big Bend area are the zones of greatest concern.
The hurricane’s peak winds were at 145kmh as it moved north-north west at 19kmh. Peak winds will reach almost 200kmh at landfall.
It is believed Michael, a Category 3 storm, is poised to push ashore a “life-threatening” surge of water that will inundate those coastal areas.
It was also unleashing flooding rain, starting last night and running through today.
“There are warnings for more than 300 miles (480km) of coastline,” the National Weather Service tweeted, predicting that Michael would become a “large and dangerous hurricane”.
Population centres that could witness some of the most severe hurricane effects include Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Panama City Beach and Apalachicola.
The surge, or the rise in sea water above normally dry land along the coast, could reach at
least 2.4m to 3.6m in the hardest-hit areas, inundating roads, homes and businesses.
Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in several Florida counties and devastating effects are expected to expand inland, far beyond the coast. “A potentially catastrophic event is developing,” the National Weather Service forecast office serving Tallahassee and surrounding areas wrote.
The office warned of “widespread power outages, downed trees blocking access to roads and endangering individuals, structural damage to homes and businesses, isolated flash flooding and the potential for a few tornadoes”.
Damaging winds and flooding rain were also predicted to reach southern Georgia and southeast Alabama today.
“This will not be just a coastal event, with dangerous winds and flooding rains spreading far inland over the south-eastern US,” said Rick Knabb, the Weather Channel’s hurricane expert.
“Shelter from hurricane-force winds like you would for a tornado, and don’t stay in mobile homes.”
Heavy rains from Michael are likely to streak into the Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic today and tomorrow, perhaps bringing more flooding to areas still recovering from Hurricane Florence.
At its rate of speed, tropical storm-force winds were expected to reach the northern Gulf Coast last night. Landfall was projected today, with models differing on whether it would occur early or late.
Hurricane warnings have been posted from the Alabama-Florida border to the Suwannee River, just northwest of Cedar Key on Florida’s west coast.
Tropical storm warnings extend farther south, to Chassahowitzka, Florida, and to the west along the Alabama coast.
Tropical storm watches are in effect for the Mississippi coast and around the Tampa Bay area. Storm-surge warnings are in effect from the Okaloosa/Walton County line in Florida to the Anclote River around Tarpon Springs.
The Tampa Bay area is under a storm-surge watch.
Michael was projected to strike an area that is exceptionally prone to storm surge because of the adjacent shallow shelf water and the concave shape of the coast.
Like a bulldozer, the storm will push a vast amount of sea water inland, potentially inundating homes, roads and
made the UN role “more glamorous” and done an “incredible job”. He added: “She also is somebody that gets it.”
The president said she first told him six months ago that she was thinking of “taking a break” but the announcement was kept a closely guarded secret.
In her resignation letter she said Mr Trump had agreed at the outset to let her “speak my mind on the issues of the day” and he had honoured that.
Last month, in an op-ed for ‘The Washington Post’, she wrote: “I proudly serve in this administration... But I don’t agree with the president on everything.” (© Daily Telegraph, London)