The
remnants of Hurricane Michael continued to batter the Southeast,
pummeling areas with rain, wind and flooding, even after being
downgraded to a tropical storm. Hundreds of thousands lost power.
In
Florida, authorities began to survey the damage after the storm, which
was the strongest on record to hit the panhandle. “We have a lot of work
to do,” said FEMA Administrator William “Brock” Long.
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(Video: Alice Li, Jon Gerberg, Jorge Ribas/The Post; photo: Jabin Botsford/The Post)
Eighty
miles inland, Tallahassee residents were used to the dangers of downed
trees and power lines during storms. But as Michael intensified to a
Category 4 hurricane, panic spread in Florida’s capital city.
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Photos: Hurricane makes landfall
Jason Phipps looks through his family’s roofless apartment after Hurricane Michael made landfall in Panama City, Fla. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The
remnants of Hurricane Michael continued to batter the Southeast,
pummeling states with powerful rain, wind and flooding, even after being
downgraded to a tropical storm. Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday as
a “potentially catastrophic” Category 4 storm — the strongest hurricane
on record to hit the area — and continued to charge north, wreaking
havoc and causing emergencies. Darkness concealed the full extent of the
damage left behind, but a second death was reported early Thursday,
apparently caused by debris crashing through a mobile home and killing a
child inside.
10:50 a.m.: North Carolina, reeling from Florence and now lashed by Michael, “adds unwelcome insult to injury”
As
the remnants of Hurricane Michael began to spread across North
Carolina, state officials warned on Thursday morning that residents were
feeling an impact that would only worsen. Tens of thousands had lost
power, at least 16 roads were closed, dozens of school systems shuttered
and three rivers were poised for moderate or major flooding,
authorities said.
Gov.
Roy Cooper (D) offered his thoughts for the other states that bore the
brunt of the storm, something that North Carolina is grimly familiar
with after Hurricane Florence delivered deadly flooding last month.
“People
in North Carolina know all too well what that feels like,” he said to
his neighbors to the south. “For North Carolina, Michael isn’t as bad as
Florence, but it adds unwelcome insult to injury, so we must be on
alert.”
The National Hurricane Center said that
shortly before 11 a.m., the center of Michael was about 35 miles away
from Charlotte and “producing heavy rainfall and tropical-storm-force
wind gusts” across much of the central and eastern parts of both
Carolinas.
Tropical-storm-force winds extend up
to 185 miles from the storm’s center, mostly to the south and east, with
a wind gust of 54 mph reported in South Carolina.
“On
the forecast track, the center of Michael will continue to move across
central and eastern North Carolina today, move across southeastern
Virginia this evening, and move into the western Atlantic Ocean
tonight,” the hurricane center said.
— Mark Berman
10:20 a.m.: FEMA: “Mexico Beach took the brunt”
FEMA
chief Brock Long said that Mexico Beach, Fla., not far from where
Hurricane Michael made landfall as a powerful system, appeared to be
“ground zero” of the storm’s impact.
“Mexico Beach took the brunt,” Long said during a news briefing Thursday morning in Washington. “That’s probably ground zero.”
Still,
Long noted that authorities still had not “been able to get in and
truly assess” the damage, which he said would take some time over the
next two days.
Long warned people in the region
to expect a long-lasting impact from the storm, which spent much of
Wednesday battering Florida before it thundered north across Georgia and
South Carolina. He pointed in particular to the power outages affecting
hundreds of thousands of people across Florida, Georgia, Alabama and
the Carolinas, saying that it could take weeks for the lights to come
back on everywhere because of the damage.
“It’s
not just power lines being down, it’s transformers that are down, it’s
substations that have been impacted,” Long said. “This is not stuff that
you just put back together overnight.”
There
was a sliver of good news, Long said: Officials were not expecting
additional flooding in the parts of the Carolinas that suffered flooding
during Hurricane Florence.
But some parts of
the coastal Carolinas were facing a threat of storm surge, he said,
warning people in the area: “It’s not over.”
— Mark Berman
10:05 a.m.: Florida governor: “We will recover and we will do it together”
Gov.
Rick Scott (R) on Thursday morning urged Floridians to remain cautious
even as the remnants of Hurricane Michael have moved north, saying that
the storm’s aftermath could pose a threat to people in the Florida
Panhandle region.
Scott
said he remains concerned about people who did not evacuate during the
storm. As of Thursday morning, he said the state has only confirmed one
fatality due to the storm; Georgia has also reported one death from the
storm.
“Hopefully everybody made it through the
storm,” Scott said. “Be safe. There’s downed power lines, don’t touch
them. There’s a lot of trees down, don’t get injured. If you’re going to
use a generator, make sure you know how to use it properly.”
He added: “We will recover and we will do it together.”
Scott
noted that the storm came on quickly and left just as rapidly after
tearing through Florida for much of Wednesday. “I know this thing came
up fast,” he said.
Still, he pleaded again with
people who evacuated coastal communities not to return yet, saying:
“Everyone needs to stay off the roads.”
— Mark Berman
9:20 a.m. update: More than 750,000 power outages reported across Southeast
The
storm has knocked out power to more than 754,000 across the
Southeastern United States, with more than half of those outages
occurring in Florida, where Michael first made landfall Wednesday as a
powerful system.
Florida officials reported
about 400,000 outages as of Thursday morning, with power entirely or
largely knocked out in counties including Bay, Gulf and Jackson. In
Georgia, more than 174,000 customers lacked power on Thursday morning.
South Carolina had about 114,000 outages, while North Carolina (more
than 23,000 outages) and Alabama (about 43,000 outages) both had wide
swaths of people without power.
— Mark Berman
8:44 a.m.: Michael moves over South Carolina and heads for North Carolina
After
wreaking havoc across the Florida Panhandle and Georgia, the storm’s
center was moving over South Carolina on Thursday morning, its
tropical-storm-force winds extending out across that state and Georgia,
according to the National Hurricane Center.
The
storm was about 40 miles west of Columbia, S.C., at 8 a.m., and
tropical storm warnings extended from Georgia through the Carolinas. The
strongest winds were mostly spreading north along the coastlines of the
Carolinas, with maximum sustained winds near 50 mph, the center said.
The
hurricane center said Michael would keep moving quickly toward the
northeast. On its current track, the storm is forecast to move through
the center of South Carolina on Thursday morning, then rumble across
parts of central and eastern North Carolina before shifting across
southeastern Virginia in the afternoon or evening. Forecasters say
Michael is expected to move out into the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday
or early Friday.
— Mark Berman
8:17 a.m.: Florida Gov. Rick Scott: ‘Stay safe’
Before
heading to the Gulf Coast to survey the damage, Gov. Rick Scott (R) had
a message for Floridians: “You survived this unbelievable storm; stay
safe.”
There
are downed power lines and downed trees “all over the place,” Scott
said on CNN, noting that there was “unbelievable devastation.”
“Stay in your house, listen to the locals, be safe — don’t do anything foolish,” said Scott.
Two
Michael-related deaths have been confirmed, including one in Florida,
and the governor noted that “we have a lot of people I’ve heard are
injured.”
He added: “My biggest concern would be loss of life.”
— J. Freedom du Lac
7:55 a.m.: Mexico Beach ‘wiped out’
FEMA Administrator William “Brock” Long said early Thursday
that “search and rescue is where we are hyper-focused this morning” —
particularly in Mexico Beach, Fla., which “was wiped out” by Hurricane
Michael’s storm surge, he said.
“We have a lot of work to do … there’s a lot of debris that we’ve got to get through,” Long said on CNN. “We’re trying to get into areas like Mexico Beach, get the teams in to be able to assess damage.”
Long
was asked about Michael’s confirmed death toll, which stands at two.
“Those numbers could climb,” he said. “Hopefully they don’t, but those
numbers could climb as search-and-rescue teams get out.”
Another priority, Long said: Restoring the power throughout the Southeast.
“You fix the power, you solve a lot of problems,” he told Fox News.
More
than half a million people across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina
have lost power due to the storm. It may be weeks before some of them
get their electricity back, Long said.
— J. Freedom du Lac
6:47 a.m.: ‘Absolutely catastrophic!’
The
sun will rise across the Florida Panhandle sometime around 7 on
Thursday, and Hurricane Michael’s trail of destruction will begin to
come into clearer focus. But the early indicators are troubling.
Consider what storm chaser Josh Morgerman tweeted
Wednesday night: “It’s hard to convey in words the scale of the
catastrophe in Panama City. The whole city looks like a nuke was dropped
on it. I’m literally shocked at the scale of the destruction.”
Morgerman has chased some of the most extreme hurricanes and typhoons across the world. As the Capital Weather Gang noted, “he is not prone to hyperbole.”
Early Thursday, he said that Michael was “definitely one of the most violent [hurricanes] I’ve been in.”
Another storm chaser, Mark Sudduth, tweeted:
“Drove from Panama City almost to Mexico Beach and I can tell you this
is the worst damage from wind that I have ever seen! Absolutely
catastrophic! You will not believe your eyes when you see it.”
Sudduth added: “Walking
thru Mexico Beach to receive my GoPro cam and I’m telling you, it’s
DEVASTATED. Truly devastated. Some buildings completely swept clean –
only slabs.”
— J. Freedom du Lac
5 a.m.: Michael continues to weaken as the storm heads toward the Carolinas.
Tropical
Storm Michael keeps getting weaker as it crosses rain-soaked Georgia
and moves northeast toward South Carolina, the National Hurricane Center
said in its latest update. By 2 a.m., sustained winds had decreased to
60 mph; at 5 a.m., they had fallen to 50 mph.
However,
the center said, winds have picked up at certain points along the
Georgia and South Carolina coast. Large parts of Georgia, the Carolinas
and southeastern Virginia could still see deadly flash floods today and
remain under a tropical storm warning.
The
storm’s center is currently about 30 miles west of Augusta, Ga., near
the South Carolina border. Forecasters expect that Michael will continue
to weaken today as the storm travels over land, likely reaching central
South Carolina this morning. Once Michael reaches the Atlantic, the
storm is expected to intensify again as it becomes a post-tropical low.
— Antonia Farzan
3:30 a.m.: Apple CEO, a Gulf Coast native, pledges to help with recovery.
On
Wednesday night, Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged that the company would help
with recovery and relief efforts. “I grew up on the shores of the Gulf
Coast, near Pensacola and Mobile, and that region holds a special place
in my heart,” he wrote on Twitter. “That’s never been more true than
now.”
Cook grew up in Robertsdale, Ala., a city
of roughly 5,200 people located roughly halfway between Mobile and
Pensacola, Fla. His father worked at Mobile’s shipyards, and his mother
worked at a drugstore.
Though Cook has called
himself a “a proud son of the South,” his relationship with the socially
conservative community where he grew up is complicated. When Cook came
out as gay in 2014, Robertsdale Mayor Charles Murphy suggested that he
should have kept his sexual orientation private. “Tim has done a good
job with Apple. We’re very proud of the accomplishments that he’s made,”
he told Reuters. “Sometimes people’s personal lives need to stay personal.”
Visiting Robertsdale in 2016, The Washington Post’s Todd Frankel noted
that Cook’s name wasn’t on the town’s welcome signs, the chamber of
commerce brochures, or at his old high school. One former classmate
speculated that the lack of recognition might be connected to Cook’s
advocacy for gay rights.
— Antonia Farzan
2 a.m.: Officials in Georgia’s Seminole County confirm a second storm-related fatality.
High
winds from Hurricane Michael lead to the death of an 11-year-old girl
in Seminole County, Ga., EMA Director Travis Brooks told The Washington
Post early Thursday morning. The girl had been inside a trailer home in
an unincorporated area of the county near Lake Seminole, close to the
Florida-Georgia border. From what officials could determine, Brooks
said, it looked like a metal carport used to store boats had been lifted
in the air by the gusting winds and had flipped over. When it landed,
its legs crashed through the roof of a neighboring mobile home and hit
the girl in the head.
“It looked like a war
zone,” Brooks said, adding that it had taken deputies from the Seminole
County Sheriff’s Office practically all day to get to the mobile home
due to the road conditions in the area. The death is the second known
fatality connected with Hurricane Michael, which has since been
downgraded to a tropical storm.
— Antonia Farzan
1:30 a.m.: Michael weakens to a tropical storm over South-Central Georgia.
After
crushing the Florida coast, Hurricane Michael weakened as it passed
through south-central Georgia on Wednesday night. By midnight, peak
winds had dropped to 70 mph, causing forecasters to reclassify it as a
tropical storm. Heavy rainfall is expected to continue drenching Georgia
through the early hours of the morning, with a threat of flash flooding
overnight.
Meanwhile, the Waffle House near
Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee was open for business
at 12:28 a.m., with lines stretching out the door. FEMA officials
famously use the Waffle House Index
as a way of measuring storm damage: Since the diner chain is ubiquitous
in the southeast, and rarely shuts down in extreme weather, seeing the
Waffle House closed down before a storm is a sign that things are about
to get extremely bad. If the Waffle House hasn’t reopened after the
storm, FEMA considers that a sign that the area has experienced major
devastation.
On Wednesday morning, a Waffle House spokesman had announced that 30 restaurants in Florida and Georgia were closed in preparation for Hurricane Michael, including
locations along the Florida Panhandle from Panama City to Destin. It
was a clear warning that the storm should be taken seriously.
— Antonia Farzan
10:35 p.m.: Stunning visuals from Florida
Before
the sun went down and the skies turned midnight blue, those in the path
of Hurricane Michael shared glimpses of what some say is the worst
hurricane damage they’ve seen. “We’re kind of getting crushed,” Franklin
County Sheriff A.J. Smith said to The Washington Post. “It’s horrific.”
Here are three photos that capture the awe such a powerful storm brings.
Jason Phipps looks through his family’s roofless apartment after Hurricane Michael made landfall in Panama City, Fla. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
— Keith McMillan
10:05 p.m. Storm chasers say they are shocked by the damage
Images of the destruction in coastal Florida towns circulated widely Wednesday night, shocking even seasoned storm chasers
and weather watchers. Smith, the sheriff of Franklin County, a coastal
patch south of Tallahassee, told CNN that the county was nearly isolated
after most of the main roads were rendered impassable from flooding and
downed trees.
“It’s bad,” he said. “We’ve been through hurricanes but never where we were completely cut off like this.”
Linda Albrecht, a councilwoman in Mexico Beach, spoke to the network about leaving her home with only a few essential objects.
“It feels like a nightmare,” she said. “Looking at the pictures, I’m thinking there is not a house left in that town.”
— Eli Rosenberg
8:16 p.m.: Local TV station is knocked off the air, but continues reporting
The
storm knocked the broadcast of Panama City-based WMBB off the air after
the television station lost power, one of more than 263,000 customers
experiencing blackouts in Florida. But that didn’t stop the journalists
from getting the report out.
Reporter Peyton LoCicero went on Periscope,
an app that allows people to live stream to a public audience from a
cellphone, to give updates about the storm. She spoke from the parking
lot of a wrecked gas station in Walton County, tilting the camera to
show the damage around her. The station’s awning had crashed to the
ground.
“I wanted to let you guys know exactly
what is going on,” she said, speaking about a curfew that had been
instituted in nearby Bay County because of concerns about looting from
the outages.
More than 17,000 people tuned into the broadcast, including Sen. Marco Rubio, who shared LoCicero’s impromptu report on Twitter.
— Eli Rosenberg
7:55 p.m.: First confirmed fatality of the storm
The
Gadsden County Sheriff’s office said that a man was found dead in his
home in a small town outside of Tallahassee after a tree crashed through
the roof. Sgt. Angela Hightower did not identify the man but said he
had been found at the home in Greensboro around 6 p.m.
— Eli Rosenberg
7:01 p.m.: The storm begins moving through Georgia, sending tornado warnings through at least three counties
The
eye of Hurricane Michael began to move through southwest Georgia on
Wednesday evening — the first major hurricane to reach the state since
the 19th century, according to local reports.
Winds
gusts of around 60 mph were reported in towns near the Georgia-Alabama
border, according to the National Weather Service. A dangerous storm
surge continued along the coastal Florida panhandle; a National Ocean
Service station in Apalachicola was reporting 5 feet of water above the
ground level.
And tornado warnings radiated
out into counties near the hurricane’s path in Georgia on Tuesday
evening, after reports of at least two that had formed in Florida.
Officials issued brief tornado warnings for Fulton, Douglas and Cobb
counties. More than 40,000 people lost power across the state.
— Eli Rosenberg
Related:
In the wake of Hurricane
Michael, Panama City residents begin to assess the damage. For some, it
means wondering if their homes remain standing.
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