Storm Update: Hurricane Helene to Barrel Into Big Bend Before Midnight, DeSantis Says

TALLAHASSEE—In the latest update on major Hurricane Helene, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday evening that the system will make landfall in the Wakulla to Taylor County areas around 11 p.m., four hours later than initially forecasted.

Helene, which is now a Category 3 storm, may slam into the Big Bend as a Category 4.

"It does look like this storm will strengthen as it prepares to make landfall later this evening," Gov. DeSantis warned at a Tallahassee press conference. "Initial estimates when we woke up this morning were that it would probably make landfall sometime in the earlier side of the evening. Now, it looks like it will be closer to 11 p.m...it's starting to move quickly."

As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Helene's maximum sustained winds are peaking at 125 mph—just five mph short of a Cat 4. It's about 125 miles west of Tampa and 175 miles south of Tallahassee, over 100 miles closer than it was at 9 a.m. Because of this, 27 counties have imposed some form of evacuation order, though only three counties have a mandatory evacuation order countywide.

Hurricane Helene as of 6:05 p.m. from the MyRadar app

One of those counties is Taylor County, a Big Bend district home to just over 20,000 people. In a demonstration of the storm's impending severity, the county Sheriff's Office posted to Facebook asking that residents who flouted the evacuation order—electing instead to hunker down at home—write their name, birthday, and "important information" on their arm or leg in permanent marker so that "you can be identified and family notified."

In an eerie callback, this was asked of New Orleans residents in 2005 during the disastrous Hurricane Katrina.

"The wind is going out pretty far from this storm, and so you're going to have hurricane-force winds for probably 50 miles outside the eye of the storm, and then you're going to continue to see a surge, particularly in that Big Bend area," DeSantis said, before stressing that people do still have time to flee. "If you're in those coastal areas—particularly in that Big Bend—if you want to get out of dodge, you still have time to do it.

"We're likely going to see conditions worsen, but if you go right now, you're probably going to be okay," he added.

Storm surges in the Big Bend have been described as "unsurvivable", and are predicted to reach as high as 20 feet in some of those coastal places. This follows 61 of 67 counties declaring a state of emergency in preparation for Helene.

If it hits Tallahassee (as models have predicted throughout the week), it will be the worst system to rock the capital city in living memory, the Governor warned.