Is Cnn Newsroom. We begin with Breaking News as we track Hurricane Helene, its now the strongest storm to ever make landfall in floridas Big Bend, sweeping across the coast hours ago as an extremely dangerous category four hurricane with winds of 140 miles per hour. Now the effects have been felt far from the center of the storm. The mayor of clearwater told me his community has been inundated despite being 100 miles from the center now, helene is weakening now but has knocked out power to more than 1,000,000. 5 homes and businesses in florida, georgia, and the carolinas. At least three people have been killed as the storm continues to pummel the southeast to end georgia. And one in florida we have had a report of a fatality on the roadway. Car driving on i4 near your Ybor City and tampa, was hit when a sign fell onto onto the highway. So that just shows you that its very dangerous. Chris conditions out there you need to be right now. Just hunkering down nows not the time to be going o
Life threatening Flash Flooding and historic Storm Surge. It left towns across the Gulf Coast completely underwater as floodwaters submerge cars, crashed over highways and seeped into homes. At least six people have lost their lives. Take a look at this, rescue crews in pinellas county, encountering homes engulfed in flames as they try to save people trapped by rising waters. Right now, helene has weakened to a tropical storm, as it heads north, putting 42 Million people under flood alerts. Millions across the south are still without power. And here is the moment when the eyewall hit perry, florida. Jesse kirsch was reporting live on the air. Reporter i can tell you that we have had intermittent moments of really powerful gusts. Were getting some right now, again. This is some of the i want to point out, i dont know if you can see it off in the distance, but there are cars out here, i can tell you, 45mileperhour winds, not to be on the roads anymore. Anyone out here, presumably, not a
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
Alertmac now a category of four hurricane, boys to make landfall in florida and the next two hours. Things are getting very dicey, multiple states bracing for the worst, storm surge, heavy wind threatening the entire gulf coast and beyond. We will get to the monolog in moments but let s check in across city in florida, yeah, fox weather is robert rae, what is the latest? and things are deteriorating in a big way here, on the nature coast. And eminent landfall in the next two hours, the wind speeds just updated the national hurricane center to 140 miles per hour sustained. That is catastrophic, like you cannot even explain. It is coming in here in the dark night, we are beginning just the rain in the wind and it will just deteriorated more in the coming hours. Has already about 400,000 customers without power in the great state of florida, a state of emergency here across the entire peninsula, up into georgia. One of the biggest concerns after landfall is as a system tracks up into geor