TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Residents of Florida’s capital prepared to evacuate their homes and stocked up on sandbags, food and supplies Wednesday as Hurricane Helene sped toward the Gulf Coast as what the city’s mayor said could be the “strongest hurricane in recorded history ever to hit” the Tallahassee area.
Helene was forecast Wednesday evening to become a dangerous Category 4 hurricane before it makes landfall in Florida’s Big Bend area Thursday night. It could bring winds in excess of 130 mph, life-threatening storm surge and flooding.
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“I need everybody to take this storm extremely seriously. This is the biggest storm in the history of the city of Tallahassee to hit us head-on,” Mayor John Dailey told NBC News on Wednesday evening. “We’re very prepared, but I’m very nervous, and I hope everyone is nervous. This is a big storm. It is going to cause a lot of damage.”
Several Florida counties are under mandatory evacuation orders, and millions of people are under flood watches.
Leslie Powell, 37, was getting ready to evacuate her mobile home in Quincy, a city in Gadsden County about 25 miles northwest of Tallahassee, with her 8-month-old baby and her 6-year-old daughter Wednesday afternoon. A voluntary evacuation order has been issued for Gadsden County, with officials urging people who live in mobile homes to find shelter elsewhere.
“I’m scared,” said Powell, who planned to go to a shelter. “I’ve got a lot of trees around my home, so it’s not safe for me and my kids.”
Dailey warned residents earlier Wednesday that the city could experience “unprecedented damage like nothing we have ever experienced before as a community” if the storm continued on its current track.
As of 5 p.m. ET Wednesday, it was expected to move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico and reach the Florida coast by Thursday evening, picking up speed along the way.
“Weakening is expected after landfall, but Helene’s fast forward speed will allow strong, damaging winds, especially in gusts, to penetrate well inland across the southeastern United States, including over the higher terrain of the southern Appalachians,” the National Hurricane Center said.
Dailey said Tallahassee, which over the years has managed to avoid many of the devastating blows that have pummeled other Florida cities, was on the verge of “a historic event.” Officials said it could bring power losses, downed trees and structural damage that could take weeks or months to recover from.
“If the city of Tallahassee is hit directly by a Category 3 hurricane, it’ll be the strongest hurricane in recorded history ever to hit our community. Current forecast continues to position us squarely within the cone of Hurricane Helene,” Dailey said at a news conference Wednesday before the forecast showed it could become a stronger Category 4 storm.
“Now is the time to prepare,” Dailey said. “We have no more time left to wait. Today is the day.”
There was no shortage of residents Wednesday responding to the calls to prepare.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 17,000 sandbags had been distributed across the three sites set up by the city.
Leroy Peck, 66, was among the many who spent part of the day shoveling sand into bags in a parking lot outside a community center. He had already filled his cars with gas and made a grocery run.
“I’ve seen some storms, but we’re usually on the fringe, and this is projected to be a direct hit, so it kind of heightens the angst,” said Peck, a retired police lieutenant. “For a long time we dodged bullets, and I guess we ran out of luck.
“It is something to be taken seriously, so we’re monitoring the weather and just trying to make sure friends and neighbors are OK,” he added.
Peck said he will ride out the storm with his mother-in-law and 8-year-old son while his wife works as an emergency dispatcher.
Across the city, there were other signs of the coming storm. The city announced that it won’t collect trash and recycling Thursday and Friday.
Tallahassee International Airport said it will suspend operations beginning Thursday and resume when it is safe.
Three major colleges, Florida State University, Florida A&M University and Tallahassee State College, have canceled classes for the rest of the week.
The city said Tuesday that mutual aid crews from several states were expected to arrive late Wednesday to assist with response and recovery efforts.
Major Thornton III, 29, said he and his family were planning to evacuate their apartment and stay with family farther south.
“We heard that the storm is getting stronger and stronger, so why hang around? Just play it safe. No harm in protecting yourself and leaving,” he said as he shoveled sandbags Wednesday. “You’ve got to protect the family.”
Several residents said the looming storm brought back memories of Hurricane Michael, which made landfall as a Category 5 storm before it weakened over land. The storm battered Tallahassee in 2018 and caused widespread power outages throughout the area.
Powell said it was very difficult to get back to her home because of downed trees and debris blocking the roads, in addition to being without power for more than a week.
“It was just awful,” she said.
Peck said he hopes that storm taught residents not to be complacent about their safety and to be prepared to potentially be without power for a while.
Latoya Williams, 40, said that as a longtime Florida resident she wasn’t afraid of the storm but was taking the proper preparations and evacuating with her husband and children from their mobile home to a hotel.
“The house can get replaced. We can’t get replaced. As long as I’ve got my family, all of us together, we’re good,” she said.