Panama City - It is the most powerful storm to hit the state's northern Panhandle area in more than a century.
Published: Thu 11 Oct 2018, 6:35 AM
Updated: Thu 11 Oct 2018, 8:06 PM
Tropical Storm Michael continues to weaken as it over eastern Georgia as it makes its way toward the Carolinas. Early Thursday, the eye of Michael was about 90 miles (144 kilometers) northeast of Macon, Georgia and 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Augusta. The storm's maximum sustained winds have decreased to 50 mph (80 kph) and it was moving to the northeast at 21 mph (33 kph).
The National Hurricane Center says the core of Michael will move across eastern Georgia into Central South Carolina on Thursday morning. It will then move across portions of central and eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia into the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday or early Friday.
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An official with an emergency management agency says Tropical Storm Michael is responsible for a child's death in Georgia.
News outlets report Seminole County Emergency Management Agency Director Travis Brooks says someone called 911 as the storm passed through the area and reported the death. WMAZ-TV quotes Brooks as saying a tree fell onto a home Wednesday afternoon and killed an 11-year-old girl. Authorities have not released her identity.
Brooks says responding crews reached the home after nightfall due to clear downed power lines, poles and trees.
Early Thursday, the eye of Michael was about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Macon in central Georgia. The storm had top sustained winds of 60 mph (96 kph) and was moving to the northeast at 20 mph (32 kph).
The National Hurricane Center says the core of Michael will move across central and eastern Georgia Thursday morning, and then over southern and central South Carolina later in the day.
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Hurricane Michael's battering waves swamped streets and docks and shrieking winds splintered trees and rooftops. The most powerful hurricane on record to hit Florida's Panhandle left widespread destruction and wasn't finished Thursday as it crossed Georgia toward the Carolinas, a region still reeling from epic flooding in Hurricane Florence.
Authorities say at least one person died, a man hit by a falling tree on a Panhandle home.
The supercharged storm crashed ashore Wednesday afternoon amid beach resorts and coastal communities, a Category 4 monster packing 155 mph (250 kph) winds. Downgraded to a tropical storm over south Georgia, it was weakening by the hour. But it's still menacing the Southeast with heavy rains, winds and a threat of spinoff tornadoes.
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Florida's Panhandle coast is littered with evidence that Hurricane Michael is one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US Roofs and awnings are peeled from buildings, pieces of homes are scattered amid snapped trees and downed power lines, chunks of beaches are washed away. After landfall in Florida, Michael's fierce winds and heavy rains thrashed Georgia and headed toward the Carolinas, including areas that got a soaking last month from Hurricane Florence.
BY THE NUMBERS
-Hurricane history: first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in Florida's Panhandle since record-keeping began in 1851.
- Top winds: 155 mph (250 kph), strong enough to completely destroy homes and cause weekslong power outages.
- Major pressure: 919 millibars minimum pressure in the hurricane's eye, the third most intense hurricane landfall in the U.S. in recorded history.
- High tides: storm surge of 6 feet (2 meters) up to 14 feet (4 meters) forecast for Florida's Panhandle and Big Bend.
- Get out: roughly 375,000 people in Florida warned to evacuate. Gov. Rick Scott says search and rescue teams are heading into the state's hardest-hit areas to help survivors.
- Staying safe: nearly 6,700 people took refuge in 54 shelters in Florida.
- Power outages: 325,775 Florida customers and 271,346 Georgia customers without power.
- Food and water: 1.5 million ready-to-eat meals, 1 million gallons (3.75 million liters) of water and 40,000 10-pound (4.5-kilogram) bags of ice ready for distribution.
- The human cost: At least one death has been reported in Gadsden County, Florida, where authorities say a tree crashed through a home and crushed a man.
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Hurricane Michael claimed its first life after roaring ashore in Florida on Wednesday, flooding homes and streets and toppling trees and power lines in the Gulf of Mexico beachfront area where it made landfall as a raging Category 4 storm.
Florida officials said Michael, packing winds of 155 miles per hour (250 kilometers per hour), was the most powerful storm to hit the state's northern Panhandle area in more than a century.
Michael had weakened to a Category 1, with maximum winds of 90 mph as of 8:00 pm Eastern time (0000 GMT), but that still left it an extremely dangerous storm
Pictures and video from Mexico Beach - a community of about 1,000 people where Michael made landfall around 1:00 pm Eastern time (1700 GMT) - showed scenes of devastation, with houses floating in flooded streets, some ripped from their foundations and missing roofs.
Roads were filled with piles of floating debris.
After being battered for nearly three hours by strong winds and heavy rains, roads in Panama City were virtually impassable and trees, satellite dishes and traffic lights lay in the streets.
Briefing President Donald Trump at the White House, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Brock Long said Michael was the most intense hurricane to strike the Florida Panhandle since 1851.
"Along our coast, communities are going to see unimaginable devastation," Scott said, with storm surge posing the greatest danger.
"Water will come miles in shore and could easily rise over the roofs of houses," he said.
"Those who stick around to experience storm surge don't typically live to tell about it," said FEMA's Long.
At a rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday night, Trump offered his "thoughts and prayers" to those in the path of the storm and said he would be visiting Florida soon.
"I'll be traveling to Florida very, very shortly and I just want to wish them all the best. Godspeed," Trump said.
Hundreds of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate their homes and the governor told residents who had not done so to "hunker down and be careful."
Ken Graham, director of the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, said Michael is "unfortunately, a historical and incredibly dangerous and life-threatening situation."
Smith, in Gadsden County, said the situation was dangerous even for emergency personnel.
"We've been very cautious with sending our first responders out right now," she said.
Olivia Smith, public information officer for the Gadsden County Board of County Commissioners, said there was "one hurricane-related fatality," adding that the incident was "debris-related. There was a tree involved."
Smith could not provide details on the victim.
The death, in an area west of state capital Tallahassee, was the first confirmed since Michael made landfall.
General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, said some Florida residents may have been surprised by the rapid growth of the storm.
"It really started as a tropical storm, and then it went to Category 1, then it was Category 2 and before you know it, it was Category 4," O'Shaughnessy said
"Where that becomes a factor is with the evacuation of some of the local populations," he said. "We haven't seen as robust of an evacuation response from the civilian population that we have seen in other storms."
Several hours after the hurricane made landfall, the eye of the storm had moved out of the Panhandle and was just west of Albany, Georgia, the NHC said.
"Michael should weaken as it crosses the southeastern United States through Thursday," the NHC said.
Long, the head of FEMA, said many Florida buildings were not built to withstand a storm above the strength of a Category 3 hurricane on the five-level Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
As it came ashore, Michael was just shy of a Category 5 - defined as a storm packing top sustained wind speeds of 157 mph or above.
An estimated 375,000 people in more than 20 counties were ordered or advised to evacuate.
The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee issued a dramatic appeal for people to comply with evacuation orders.
"Hurricane Michael is an unprecedented event and cannot be compared to any of our previous events. Do not risk your life, leave NOW if you were told to do so," it said.
Trump issued an emergency declaration for Florida, freeing up federal funds for relief operations and providing the assistance of FEMA, which has more than 3,000 people on the ground.
State officials issued disaster declarations in Alabama and Georgia and the storm is also expected to bring heavy rainfall to North and South Carolina.
The Carolinas are still recovering from Hurricane Florence, which left dozens dead and is estimated to have caused billions of dollars in damage last month.
It made landfall on the coast as a Category 1 hurricane on September 14 and drenched some parts of the state with 40 inches (101 centimeters) of rain.
Last year saw a string of catastrophic storms batter the western Atlantic - including Irma, Maria and Harvey, which caused a record-equaling $125 billion in damage when it flooded the Houston metropolitan area.
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Scientists have long warned that global warming will make storms more destructive, and some say the evidence for this may already be visible.
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