Florida braces for Hurricane Hermine

CARRABELLE, Fla. -- Hurricane Hermine gained strength Thursday evening as it roared toward Florida's Gulf Coast, churning up pounding surf that battered docks and boathouses as people braced for the first direct hit on the state from a hurricane in over a decade.

The National Hurricane Center said the former tropical storm's top sustained winds rose from 75 mph in the afternoon to 80 mph by nightfall, gaining new fury as it bore down on the coast.

Hermine's landfall was expected late Thursday or early today in the Big Bend area -- the mostly rural and lightly populated corner where the Florida peninsula meets the Panhandle -- then drop back down to a tropical storm and push into Georgia, the Carolinas and up the East Coast with the potential for drenching rain and deadly flooding.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned of the danger of strong storm surge, high winds, downed trees and power outages and had urged people during the day to move to inland shelters if necessary and make sure they had enough food, water and medicine.

"This is a life-threatening situation," Scott said. "It's going to be a lot of risk. Right now, I want everybody to be safe."

Courtney Chason, a longtime resident of Carrabelle in the Big Bend coastal area, watched warily Thursday evening as surging waves began battering some docks and boathouses, the angry surf slowly tearing at them. Water also crashed into yards closest to the shore.

"I've never seen it this high. It's pretty damn crazy," Chason said. "I hope it doesn't get any higher; we need lots of prayers."

A strengthened Hermine also sent heavy squalls with its outer bands over Gulf coast beaches elsewhere. By Thursday evening, the normally wide, sugar-sand beach on Treasure Island was covered in water. Palm trees whipped in the wind.

Elsewhere along the beach, people gawked at the abnormally large waves and took selfies ahead of the storm.

The city of St. Petersburg was littered with downed palm fronds and tree branches, and low-lying streets were flooded.

In north Florida, some 9,200 power outages were reported Thursday evening on a map maintained by officials in Tallahassee, the capital city located in north Florida about 35 miles from the coast.

Utility officials couldn't be reached for more details, though Florida's governor had warned some of the city's trees might topple over power lines in storm winds.

Scott said 6,000 National Guardsmen in Florida are ready to mobilize after the storm passes. The governors of Georgia and North Carolina declared states of emergency.

At 10 p.m. EDT, Hermine was centered about 40 miles southeast of Apalachicola, Florida, while moving north-northeast at about 14 mph.

Forecasters said the Category 1 hurricane had top sustained winds of 80 mph.

Projected rainfall ranged up to 10 inches in parts of northern Florida and southern Georgia, with 4 to 10 inches possible along the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas by Sunday. Lesser amounts were forecast farther up the Atlantic Coast, because the storm was expected to veer out to sea.

The last hurricane to strike Florida was Wilma, a powerful Category 3 storm that arrived Oct. 24, 2005. It swept across the Everglades and struck south Florida, causing five deaths in the state and an estimated $23 billion in damage.