Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday in northwestern Florida as a Category four storm as forecasters warned of “catastrophic” flooding along the Gulf Coast.
The National Hurricane Centre in Miami said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 pm EDT near Perry, Florida, in the Big Bend area of the state’s Gulf Coast.
It had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph).
Officials have forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet (6 metres) and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Florida’s Apalachee Bay.
Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina.
As of 11 pm EDT, more than 885,000 customers in Florida were without power, according to tracking site poweroutage.us.
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The site’s map showed multiple counties in Florida’s Big Bend area where a majority of customers did not have power.