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| Hurricane Michael Live Updates: Florida Braces for Category 4 Storm | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — The Florida Panhandle braced for a lashing from Hurricane Michael as the storm sawed north on Wednesday, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and intensifying to a Category 4 storm. | |
| Weather forecasters and government officials worried about destructive winds and an onslaught of rain, but they also feared the hurricane’s storm surge, which they said could reach 13 feet in some areas, in a region that is particularly vulnerable to it. | |
| “The time for evacuating along the coast has come and gone,” Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said on Twitter on Wednesday. “First responders will not be able to come out in the middle of the storm. If you chose to stay in an evacuation zone, you must SEEK REFUGE IMMEDIATELY.” | |
| Here’s the latest: | Here’s the latest: |
| • The storm grew more organized Tuesday evening and intensified to Category 4 overnight, with sustained wind speeds of up to 140 miles per hour. | |
| • The storm was about 105 miles south-southwest of Panama City, Fla., as of 7 a.m., moving toward the coast at 13 m.p.h., according to the National Hurricane Center. Click on the map below to see the storm’s projected path. | |
| • The eye of Michael is expected to make landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday, tracking northeast across Georgia and the Carolinas on Thursday before moving off the Mid-Atlantic coast on Friday. | |
| • Flash flooding is a concern. The Florida Panhandle and Big Bend region, southeast Alabama and parts of Georgia could receive four to eight inches of rain, with some spots getting as much as a foot. | |
| • Governors in three states — Florida, Alabama and Georgia — have declared states of emergency, with mandatory evacuations in effect in coastal areas across the Florida Panhandle. | • Governors in three states — Florida, Alabama and Georgia — have declared states of emergency, with mandatory evacuations in effect in coastal areas across the Florida Panhandle. |
| • Follow New York Times journalists on the scene: Patricia Mazzei in Tallahassee, Richard Faussett in Panama City and Alan Blinder in Atlanta. | |
| Hurricane Michael comes as undecided voters — and polls suggest there are not many of them in Florida this year — are finalizing their choices less than four weeks before statewide elections. It presents opportunities and hazards for a host of candidates eager to display competence and gravitas as voters make up their minds and begin casting their ballots. | Hurricane Michael comes as undecided voters — and polls suggest there are not many of them in Florida this year — are finalizing their choices less than four weeks before statewide elections. It presents opportunities and hazards for a host of candidates eager to display competence and gravitas as voters make up their minds and begin casting their ballots. |
| Among the candidates are Governor Scott, who is running a fierce race for Senate against the Democratic incumbent, Bill Nelson, and Mayor Andrew Gillum of Tallahassee, the Democratic nominee for governor. | |
| How they tackle the preparations and response to the storm could cement their standing as front-runners — or upend months of painstaking campaign work, rendered useless by the late-arriving taint of a botched disaster. | How they tackle the preparations and response to the storm could cement their standing as front-runners — or upend months of painstaking campaign work, rendered useless by the late-arriving taint of a botched disaster. |
| “It’s a chance to show leadership, but it’s also a chance to fail at leadership,” said former Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina, who faced a hurricane about a month before the election he lost in 2016. “People are observing the littlest of things — how you dress, how you pronounce things, your passion, your empathy — and you’re being evaluated moment by moment.” | “It’s a chance to show leadership, but it’s also a chance to fail at leadership,” said former Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina, who faced a hurricane about a month before the election he lost in 2016. “People are observing the littlest of things — how you dress, how you pronounce things, your passion, your empathy — and you’re being evaluated moment by moment.” |
| [Read more about the politics of major storms here.] | [Read more about the politics of major storms here.] |
| After deeply destructive hurricanes, like Florence last month and Harvey in 2017, both of which dawdled over land and dumped disastrous amounts of rain, Michael was moving at a speed that was “almost exactly average for storms,” said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. | |
| The storm formed in the Western Caribbean and moved steadily northward, which is typical for this time of year, and will strike in October, well before the Nov. 30 close of the Atlantic hurricane season. And the storm has moved along a path well predicted by computer models, which have suggested a Panhandle landfall for days. | |
| “It’s a very well-behaved storm,” Mr. McNoldy said. | |
| Predicting its consequences is harder to do. After striking Florida on Wednesday, Michael is expected to race over Georgia and the Carolinas — including communities still recovering from Hurricane Florence — as a tropical storm before moving offshore on Friday. | |
| “Because of the damage caused by Hurricane Florence and the fact that there’s still some standing water in places, we have to be that much more alert about the damage that Hurricane Michael could do,” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said on Tuesday. “We know we have to be ready, and hurricane-weary North Carolinians cannot let their guard down just because we’re fatigued with Hurricane Florence.” | |
| In Florida, residents rushed toward shelters, some arriving hours before they opened so they could snag a coveted spot. | |
| Mary Thompson, 69, was among those seeking a corner spot at a shelter in Tallahassee, two years after Hurricane Hermine swept through the capital and left her terrified. This time, with her street lined with trees, she fled to a shelter where volunteers passed out bottled water and trail mix. | |
| To the west in Fountain, the Piggly Wiggly Express market was a showcase of the other options before a hurricane: hustling out of town, or stocking up to sit it out at home. | |
| Under cloudy skies, the air thick and hot, a pool of people waited in line at the automated ice machine. A few feet away, the gas pumps were busy with Floridians topping off as they fled from the coast and north toward Dothan, Ala. — and what they hoped would be safety. | |
| Inside, the cashiers moved mountains: Bud Light, infant formula, potato chips, cupcakes. Zihesa Long and Tayrael Perryman were there, happy to find what they had come for — three extra-long loaves of Sunbeam bread. | |
| Mr. Perryman, 42, of Panama City, said they had been unable to find any bread on the shelves in their neighborhood. So they drove up Highway 231, checking stores until they found it at the Piggly Wiggly. | |
| With bread in hand, Mr. Perryman and Ms. Long, 32, were headed back to their home in Panama City, about a 30-minute drive south. They lived near a bayou, he said, which they feared would overflow with the storm surge. But they were still on the fence about leaving. The plan was to keep waiting and watching the news. If by Wednesday morning Michael still looked like it was going to slam straight into Panama City, then maybe they, too, would head to Dothan to bunk with relatives. | |
| [Read more here about how Floridians were preparing for the storm.] |