Monster storm slams into Florida; 2 dead
PANAMA CITY (Reuters) — The third-most powerful storm ever to strike the US mainland headed northeast to soak Georgia and the Carolinas yesterday, leaving the Florida Panhandle to assess the devastation left by Hurricane Michael.
A man was killed when a tree toppled onto his house in Florida and a girl died when debris fell into a home in Georgia, local media reported and officials said.
The Category 4 storm was the fiercest hurricane to hit Florida in 80 years when it came ashore on Wednesday, but its strength waned as it pushed into Georgia. Yesterday, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, with top sustained winds diminishing to 60 miles per hour.
More than 700,000 homes and businesses were without power in Florida, Alabama and Georgia yesterday. Thousands hunkered down in shelters overnight after fleeing their homes to escape the fast-ap- proaching storm.
Michael, whose rapid intensification as it churned north over the Gulf of Mexico caught many by surprise, made landfall on Wednesday afternoon near Mexico Beach, 32 kilometers, southeast of Panama City in Florida’s Panhandle. Top sustained winds reached 155 miles per hour.
The governors of North and South Carolina urged residents to brace for heavy rain and storm-force winds as Michael plowed northward up the Atlantic seaboard. The Carolinas are still recovering from the flooding that followed Hurricane Florence less than a month ago.
The National Hurricane Center said Michael will pass through the Carolinas today, dumping as much as eight inches of rain in some areas. Up to a foot of rain was forecast in Florida.
Television news footage during the day showed homes submerged in floodwaters up to their roofs in Mexico Beach. The fate of about 280 residents who authorities said ignored evacuation orders was unknown.
Numerous buildings in Panama City were demolished or left without roofs amid deserted streets littered with debris, twisted, fallen tree trunks and dangling wires.
Bill Manning, a 63-year-old grocery clerk, fled his camper van in Panama City for safer quarters in a hotel only to see the electricity there go out.
“My God, it’s scary. I didn’t expect all this,” he said.
Twenty miles south of Mexico Beach, floodwaters were more than seven feet deep near Apalachicola, a town of about 2,300 residents, hurricane center chief Ken Graham said. Wind damage was also evident.
“There are so many downed power lines and trees that it’s almost impossible to get through the city,” Apalachicola Mayor Van Johnson said.
Some 500,000 Florida residents were ordered or urged to seek higher ground before the storm in 20 counties spanning a 200-mile stretch of shoreline, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.
But Brad Kieserman of the American Red Cross said on Wednesday as many as 320,000 people on Florida’s Gulf Coast had disregarded evacuation notices.
An estimated 6,000 evacuees took cover in emergency shelters, most of them in Florida, and that number was expected to swell to 20,000 across five states by week’s end, Kieserman said.