Helene made a historic landfall as the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend, Report informs via CNN.
The Category 4 hurricane will continue to unleash life-threatening storm surge, flooding rainfall and destructive winds, and the National Weather Service has warned of “unsurvivable” storm surge in Apalachee Bay.
Hurricane Helene could be the strongest storm that Sarasota, Florida has encountered in the past century, its mayor Liz Alpert said.
Alpert told CNN’s Michael Holmes that her city “is still looking very bad actually” despite the storm weakening after making landfall
“This is the worst probably we’ve seen in our area in 100 years,” she said. “I’ve been in Sarasota for 22 years and I’ve never seen anything like that.”
She said she was “absolutely” afraid of what daylight would bring, saying that the city’s low-lying barrier islands had been fully submerged.