Hermine Now A Hurricane, Florida Braces For Landfall

(CNN) — Florida’s governor issued a stern warning Thursday for a state that hasn’t seen a hurricane for a decade: Hermine, expected to hit the eastern Florida Panhandle by early Friday, could be memorably dangerous.

Now spinning across the Gulf of Mexico, Hermine became a Category 1 hurricane on Thursday and is expected to slam into the Big Bend region of Florida’s Gulf Coast around midnight, bringing potentially deadly storm surges of up to 8 feet along with heavy rain, the National Hurricane Center said.

When Hermine makes its expected landfall, it would be the first hurricane to hit the state since Wilma in 2005.

“This is life-threatening,” Gov. Rick Scott told reporters in Tallahassee on Thursday. “The storm surge, by itself, is life-threatening.”

“We have not had a hurricane in years. So many people have moved to our state (since) then, and we always have visitors,” he said. He warned people in the storm’s path to have at least three days of supplies, and to heed any mandatory evacuation orders along the coast.

Rain has been pounding Florida’s Gulf Coast ahead of the storm since Wednesday, and forecasters say much more is in store. Hermine could bring up to 10 inches of additional rainfall to some places, including the capital, Tallahassee — with up to 20 inches possible in small areas — before dumping heavy rain in parts of Georgia and the eastern Carolinas, forecasters said.

On Thursday afternoon, its maximum sustained winds hit 75 mph, upgrading Hermine’s status from a tropical storm to a hurricane.

Surge ‘is what got me worried right now’
But rain is just part of the threat. Storm surges and tides could push 1 to 8 feet of water into normally dry coastal areas, from Destin on the Panhandle to Tampa in west-central Florida, the hurricane center said. Tornadoes and downed power lines also are possible, forecasters said.

In Apalachicola on the Panhandle coast, contractors Lake Smith and Joshua Wolfhagen were boarding up windows Thursday at the Consulate, a four-suite hotel in a two-story brick building about 60 feet from the waterfront.

“Storm (surge) is what got me worried right now,” Smith said. “Mostly worried about washing out the roads and a few of the homes in low-lying areas.”

Wolfhagen said he feared Hermine would make for a significant disaster in Apalachicola and Franklin County — which he said could ultimately hurt his work.

“People … don’t want to build a house where storms hit. We got a bunch of work after the storm (from 2005) but we slowed way down,” he said.

Hermine is forecast to pack sustained winds of around 75 mph — just above minimal hurricane strength — by the time it hits the coast, the hurricane center said. Hurricane conditions could reach the panhandle region Thursday night, ahead of landfall.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the area between the Suwannee River westward to Mexico Beach, Florida.

Scott declared a state of emergency for 51 of the state’s 67 counties. He ordered all state offices in those 51 counties to close by noon Thursday.