Tropical Storm Helene hits Florida with strong winds and rain

Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s west coast with dangerous winds, knocking out power to more than a million customers and threatening to trigger deadly flooding in several states.

Helene made landfall near Perry with sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour, according to the US National Hurricane Center, making it a Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, before weakening to a tropical storm.

“Life-threatening storm oval, winds and heavy rain continue,” the NHC said in an updated advisory at 5 a.m. ET. The storm has winds of 70 miles per hour.

Several hurricane and tropical storm warnings have been discontinued along parts of Florida’s east and west coasts, the NHC advisory said. The tropical storm warning has ended for the Florida Keys, including the Dry Tortugas.

Helene’s massive size means it is expected to bring torrential rain and flooding to cities hundreds of miles away, including Atlanta and Asheville, N.C. Before making landfall, its outward winds extended 310 miles, the storm causing widespread disruption to land and air travel.

More than 1.3 million homes and businesses are without power in the southeastern US, according to PowerOutage.us, with the vast majority in Florida. The storm also shut down about a quarter of Gulf of Mexico oil production and a fifth of gas activities, according to a Thursday notification from the Office of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Helene plowed ashore in Florida’s rural Big Bend region, near the state capital of Tallahassee, which has a population of about 200,000. Gov. Ron DeSantis said it will be one of the strongest storms to hit the city in living memory.

The system strengthened as it neared landfall, with its upper winds reaching up to 140 miles per hour in the last two hours before making landfall, according to NHC advisories.

The Tallahassee office of the National Weather Service warned in its latest update on X that “dangerous storm surge continues along the Big Bend coast.” However, “winds will gradually decrease during the morning.”

“Water levels this morning are just at their peak, 2-3 feet higher than previous records in Tampa Bay and up to Cedar Key,” said Jennifer Hubbard, warning coordinator meteorologist, National Weather Service Tampa Bay Area . “With Helene’s incredibly wide wind field, we also saw tropical storm-force winds in the area, with some hurricane-force gusts in the lower 80 mph range in St. Petersburg and the Egmont Channel.”

Total damage and economic losses could reach $15 billion, depending on how long Helene sustains its most dangerous winds, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research. Helene is the fourth hurricane to hit the US Gulf Coast this year.

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