Hurricane Helene Update: DeSantis Hopeful Tallahassee May Be (Slightly) Spared

TALLAHASSEE—Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced that new models for the ever-strengthening Hurricane Helene have it tracking more east, which would help spare Florida's capital city the massive damage that some residents are preparing for.

Though most predictions have Helene, which is now a Category 2, slamming into the Panhandle just southwest of Tallahassee, newer models Thursday morning show it slowly nudging east toward the Big Bend.

"The models are nudging the center of the storm a little bit east, and that's significant when you're talking about Tallahassee," Gov. DeSantis said at a Tallahassee press conference, pointing out that the northeast side of a hurricane is always the most damaging. So, if Tallahassee is instead hit with the western edge, the projected devastation from current paths may be lessened.

"To the extent it's tracking east and mirroring more of an Idalia track—rather than a direct hit on Tallahassee—that's going to impact the extent of the damage. This area has not had a major hurricane hit in quite some time, and certainly, nobody in recent memory has seen a storm of this magnitude that has hit," DeSantis continued. "There's no guarantee that it's going to continue on that trend, but we have seen that slight trend, and that could potentially be very impactful."

As of 8 a.m. this morning, Hurricane Helene was 365 miles south of Apalachicola with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph. It's expected to make landfall in Northern Florida—between Cedar Key and Panama City—at some point this evening as either a Category 3 or 4, bringing with it storm surges of up to 20 feet along some parts of the coast. To combat this, the National and State Guard as well as 18,000 linemen, the Florida Department of Transportation, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management are at the ready.

21 counties have some sort of mandatory evacuation order in place and another six have voluntary evacuation orders ahead of Helene's impact, while overnight, there have been 14 different tornado warnings. The Tallahassee, St. Pete, and Tampa airports have all shut down as of this morning.

The biggest thing that Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie warns about is debris and tree limbs, telling onlookers: "If you hear trees snapping around your home, treat it like a tornado," he said, instructing Floridians to go to an interior portion of their home, to get low, and cover themselves with a blanket or thin mattress. He said it would sound a lot like "firecrackers or potentially gunshots", though if the sound suddenly cuts off, it means "You are in the eye of the hurricane."

Both DeSantis and Guthrie pointed out that Floridians still have the option to call a free Uber to a shelter or take a state-sanctioned bus, but time is running out.