Northwest Florida encounters "nightmare" as Hurricane Helene makes landfall

TALLAHASSEE - The time to prepare was over as residents in the path of Hurricane Helene in northwest Florida evacuated or hunkered down on Thursday for what the National Weather Service office said was a "nightmare" scenario of catastrophic storm surge.

With maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, the Category 4 storm made landfall at 11:10 p.m. in Florida's Big Bend region, just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River and about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry in Taylor County. Helene was about 70 miles east-southeast of Tallahassee and about 70 miles north-northwest of Cedar Key.

A University of Florida Coastal Monitoring Program located on Cedar Key reported a sustained wind of 59 mph and a wind gust of 78 mph.

The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee urged residents to "please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously," describing the surge scenario as "a nightmare." Helene is expected to cause significant damage hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern U.S.

Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly "catastrophic and unsurvivable" in Apalachee Bay. It added that high winds and heavy rains also posed risks.

The following surge levels were reported at record levels: Old Port Tampa 5.5 feet, East Bay Tampa 5.93 feet, St. Petersburg 5.47 feet, Clearwater Beach 6.3 feet, Port Manatee 5.58 feet.

Helene was upgraded to a major Category 4 storm Thursday night . Hurricane and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. Most of the state was in a tropical storm warning.

Hurricane-force winds extend up to 60 miles from the center and tropical-force winds up to 310 miles. Florida is 361 miles wide from the Atlantic Ocean to the Perdido River.

Statewide, more than 1 million customers were without power Thursday night, according to Poweroutage.us . There are 1,399,093 customers.

The storm aimed squarely at the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida's Panhandle and peninsula meet. Shuttered gas stations dotted the two-lane highway, their windows boarded up with plywood.

Last August, Hurricane Idalia, a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, generated a record-breaking storm surge from Tampa to the Big Bend. This August, Hurricane Debby also hit the area.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Urban Search and Rescue team members are currently staging in Ocala, which is inland from Big Bend.

This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Florida's beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders — the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands; the dwarf cypress trees of Tate's Hell State Forest; and Wakulla Springs, considered one of the world's largest and deepest freshwater springs.

More than 175 people are sheltering in a school in Tallahassee.

Annie Sloan, who was one of them, told CBS News Miami:  "I decided to come to the shelter because I live alone and basically my son came to take me to Georgia, but we discovered the hurricane was going to Georgia also, and I decided to just come here and shelter because my husband passed, and I don't want to be home alone."

Barbara Conyers, who also lives alone, said: "last time I was there at my home and wires were down after the storm and I was afraid to go out."

Sharonda Davis also was gathered at a Tallahassee shelter and worried her mobile homes wouldn't withstand the winds. She told Associated Press the hurricane's size is "scarier than anything because it's the aftermath that we're going to have to face."

Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region's Apalachee Bay, told Associated Press he plans to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others – on his boat. "This is what pays my bills," Tooke said of his boats. "If I lose that, I don't have anything."

Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota.

Most gas stations in the Tallahassee area were shut down or out of gas.

Gus Daniels Jr. was one of many people CBS News Miami met, saying he looked for gas at three stations with plans to check out another one.

Anthony Godwin, 20, found one gas station outside Crawfordville where the tanks were still running Thursday morning to fill up before heading west toward his sister's house in Pensacola.

"It's a part of life. You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm," said Godwin, who lives about a half-mile from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, told Associated Press. During Hurricane Michael in 2018 , Godwin said the water came up to the end of the driveway of his family's home.

Along Florida's Gulf Coast, school districts and multiple universities have canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in the state and beyond.

It was already starting to be felt Thursday afternoon, with tropical storm force winds hitting the state and water lapping over a road on the northern tip of Siesta Key near Sarasota.

With forecasters also warning of tornadoes, damaging winds and mudslides, the governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies, as did President Joe Biden for several of the states. He is sending the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Florida on Friday to view the damage.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared the declaration Monday.

While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The center posted lesser tropical storm warnings as far north as North Carolina, and warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding.

The storm formed Tuesday in the Caribbean Sea .

Helene is forecast to be one of the largest storms in breadth in years to hit the region, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. He said since 1988, only three Gulf hurricanes were bigger than Helene's predicted size: 2017's Irma, 2005's Wilma and 1995's Opal.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures .