Hurricane Helene is rapidly strengthening in the Caribbean Sea while moving north along Mexico’s coast toward the U.S., prompting residents to evacuate, schools to close and officials to declare emergencies in Florida and Georgia.
Tampa International Airport in Florida will suspend operations early Thursday ahead of when Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall in the U.S.
Concerns deepened Wednesday afternoon that Helene’s hurricane-force winds could be felt far inland when the storm is forecast to move rapidly northward into southern Georgia after striking Florida.
More than 30 counties in southern Georgia were under a hurricane warning from the National Weather Service on Wednesday, including some rural areas roughly 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line.
The hurricane warning area for Georgia included Albany, southwest Georgia’s largest city with a population of 67,000, as well as Valdosta, home to 55,000 along Interstate 75.
Helene approached barely a year after Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County took a beating from Hurricane Idalia, which damaged more than 1,000 homes and inflicted more than $6 million in damage.
Oyster farmer Cainnon Gregg is spending Wednesday in a wetsuit, sinking his floating cages full of oysters to the bottom of Oyster Bay near Spring Creek, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Tallahassee. It’s an attempt to keep his prized bivalves and the specialized aquaculture equipment that houses them from being blown apart by Hurricane Helene.
“Lord willing, the oysters will survive. But the main goal is to keep the equipment,” Gregg said. “If you lose your equipment, most of us can’t afford $50,000, $100,000 to start over.”
Gregg is part of a coalition of oyster farmers along what’s known as Florida’s Forgotten Coast, a largely undeveloped stretch of the state where for generations commercial fishing has been an industry and a way of life.
Gregg said he hopes to harvest one last truckload of his signature Salty Birds and Big Gulp oysters — banking on one final paycheck before Helene does its worst.
“I was sitting here yesterday after we got done working and we were drinking a beer before we left. And I was looking around and I was like, ‘man, this might be the last time we sit here’,” Gregg said. “There’s a good chance that we come back and it’s not here.”
Ahead of Hurricane Helene’s arrival in Florida, at least 24 counties in the state were under an evacuation order by midday Wednesday, according to the state Division of Emergency Management.
While some orders were voluntary, others were mandatory applying in part or entirely to a given county. Some orders also specifically applied to individuals in one of at least evacuation zones: A, B or C.
Florida residents looking for more information about evacuation zones and evacuation orders in their area can visit the division’s website.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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