1 dead after Hermine rips through Florida and Georgia en route up U.S. East Coast
Tropical storm could bring devastating floods to East Coast over Labour Day weekend
Hermine tore across northern Florida on Friday as the first hurricane to hit the state in more than a decade, killing one person, raising a storm surge that destroyed beachside buildings and toppling trees into homes.
As the system pushed into Georgia, it knocked down power lines in both states. Hundreds of thousands of people were without electricity.
Hermine has moved into the Carolinas and is expected roll up the East Coast, bringing the potential for drenching rain and devastating flooding through the Labour Day weekend.
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As of 5 p.m. ET Hermine was passing Charleston, S.C., with strong winds and heavy rains, the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
States declare emergencies
The governors of Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia declared emergencies for all or parts of their states, and a state of emergency remained in effect for most of Florida.
A South Carolina official says Hermine has spawned scattered reports of flooded roads, trees down and power outages but no major damage. Gov. Nikki Haley did not declare a state of emergency.
The worst damage appears to be on the southern tip of the state in Beaufort County where there were flooded roads, numerous reports of trees down and where a wind gust of 52 mph was recorded.
In the Charleston area, only a handful of roads were closed because of flooding, not uncommon during summer thunderstorms.
Wind gusts up to 48 kilometres per hour were reported in the Richland County area, and some areas received 100 mm of rain — mainly south and east of Columbia.
Homeless man killed in Florida
Although damage was still being assessed, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he knew of no other "major issues" besides the power outages and damaged roads. It was unclear whether he had received word of damage to remote and sparsely populated beach areas just south of the Big Bend, where the peninsula meets the Panhandle.
A homeless man in Marion County, south of Gainesville, was killed when he was hit by a tree, Scott said at a news conference.
At Dekle Beach, a storm surge damaged numerous homes and destroyed storage buildings and a 90 metre fishing pier. The area is about 96.5 kilometres southeast of St. Marks, where Hermine made landfall at 1:30 a.m.
An unnamed spring storm that hit the beach in 1993 killed 10 people who refused to evacuate. This time, only three residents stayed behind. All escaped injury.
In nearby Steinhatchee, a storm surge crashed into Bobbi Pattison's home. She wore galoshes and was covered in black muck as she stood in her living room amid overturned furniture and an acrid smell. Tiny crabs darted around her floor.
"I had a hurricane cocktail party last night and God got even with me," she said with a chuckle. Where her bar once stood now was only wet sand and rubble. Pattison and two neighbours managed to set upright a large wooden statue of a sea captain she had carved from wood that washed ashore in the 1993 storm.
Fire-rescue spokesman Mike Bellamy said an unknown number of people were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening. His agency responded to more than 300 calls overnight.
The governor estimated that 325,000 people statewide had no power.
Trees downed, homes damaged
It was sometime after midnight when Alan Autry, 48, started hearing the large pines that line his Tallahassee neighbourhood start to crack and fall to the ground.
Then he heard one come down on the top floor of his house. The tree didn't initially crash through the roof, and Autry and his wife went to a neighbor's house. Sometime before dawn, the corner of his house collapsed from the weight of the tree.
"We've been married 13 years and this is our fifth hurricane," said Autry who moved from central Florida six years ago. "By far, this is the worst damage we've ever had."
In Wakulla County, south of Tallahassee, at least seven homes were damaged by falling trees, said Scott Nelson, the county's emergency manager.
Thousands without power in Georgia
As Hermine surged into southern Georgia, 84-year-old Melvin Gatlin Sr. awoke before dawn to the sound of a thundering crack that shook his whole house.
The storm's winds had uprooted a pine tree in Gatlin's backyard and sent it crashing onto his home of more than 40 years. The trunk crushed a storage shed where Gatlin kept his deep freezer, lawn mower and other tools and appliances. It also made a tear in the roof.
"I thought somebody had shot me, the way it sounded," Gatlin said a few hours later in his living room, where a cooking pot on the floor caught water dripping from the ceiling in a long, thin line.
By late Friday morning, more than 107,000 customers were left without power across Georgia, utility companies reported.
The last hurricane to strike Florida was Wilma, a powerful Category 3 storm that arrived on Oct. 24, 2005. It swept across the Everglades and struck heavily populated south Florida, causing five deaths in the state and an estimated $23 billion in damage.
