The most powerful hurricane on record to hit Florida’s panhandle has caused wide destruction and killed at least two people as it moves towards southeast United States.
Michael was downgraded by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) from a category 4 hurricane to a tropical storm early on Thursday.
The storm’s eye is moving across southern Georgia and towards the Carolinas, which are still reeling from epic floods caused by Hurricane Florence last month.
The NHC in Miami said Michael’s eye was about 25 miles (40km) east of Macon in central Georgia at 2:00 am (0600 GMT) on Thursday. The storm had top sustained winds of 96 kph and was moving to the northeast at 32 kph.
At least two people, including a girl killed by a falling tree, have died as a result of Michael, according to reports.
Nearly 30 million people are in danger of being impacted by Michael, according to estimates. Over 370,000 people are without power in Florida, Alabama and Georgia
#Michael weakens to a tropical storm over south-central Georgia. Here is the 12 am EDT update on October 11th. This is the last hourly update. Next update will be the intermediate public advisory at 2 am EDT. pic.twitter.com/89wX6xYzrs
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) 11 October 2018
The storm made landfall near Panama City in the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday, the most powerful hurricane to hit the region since the mid-1800s, according to the Federal Emergency Management Service.
“We are in new territory,” National Hurricane Center (NHC) Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen wrote on Facebook. “The historical record, going back to 1851, finds no Category-4 hurricane ever hitting the Florida Panhandle.”
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| Storm surged of nearly 2 metres were recorded in Florida [Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images/AFP] |
President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for all of Florida on Wednesday. The designation allows federal funds to be provided for disaster relief and authorizes FEMA to coordinate disaster relief.
Michael sprang quickly from a weekend tropical depression, going from a Category 2 on Tuesday to a Category 4 by the time it came ashore.
It forced more than 375,000 people up and down the Gulf Coast to evacuate as it gained strength quickly while crossing the eastern Gulf of Mexico toward north Florida.
It moved so fast that people didn’t’ have much time to prepare, and emergency authorities lamented that many ignored the warnings and seemed to think they could ride it out.
Based on its internal barometric pressure, Michael was the third most powerful hurricane to hit the US mainland, behind the unnamed Labor Day storm of 1935 and Camille in 1969.
Based on wind speed, it was the fourth-strongest, behind the Labor Day storm (296 kph), Camille and Andrew in 1992.
