Hurricane Helene made landfall on Thursday, Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm near Perry, Fla., bringing 140-mph winds and potentially historic flooding.
🌀 Hurricane #Helene officially has made landfall in the Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane.
Residents should continue to shelter in place & remain vigilant!
Deadly hazards & conditions are present well into Friday morning as the storm continues to move further inland.
— FL Division of Emergency Management (@FLSERT) September 27, 2024
NBC News reported 22 fatalities from the strongest hurricane to hit the Big Bend area of Florida on record.
Downgraded to a tropical storm on Friday, Sept. 27, Helene was forecast to also impact the Atlanta metropolitan area that day.
High-end flash flood emergency warnings, as well as a tornado watch, remained in effect. The Weather Channel said there have been nearly 200 flood reports between northern Florida and western Virginia in the past 48 hours.
The storm surge in Citrus County was approximately 10 feet, with more than 100 water rescues conducted in that area, CNN reported.
As of Friday morning, Sept 27, the PowerOutage.us map showed Florida, Georgia and South Carolina each had more than 1 million customers without power, while more than 600,000 outages were reported across North Carolina.
Florida issued an emergency on Monday, Sept. 23. Georgia and Kentucky followed suit on Tuesday, Sept. 24, while disaster declarations were enacted in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
Fuel market
Ahead of Helene, a reported 29% of oil production and 17% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico went offline. Additionally, about 5% of the manned platforms were evacuated.
Several ports, including Port Tampa Bay, were closed or were open with restrictions, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
On Friday, Sept. 27, ProMiles.com reported an average diesel price per gallon of $3.41 in Florida, down 1 cent from the previous day.
The Energy Information Administration is scheduled to release its weekly fuel report on Monday, Sept 30. Last week, the Lower Atlantic region’s diesel average was $3.467, while the Gulf Coast’s was $3.191. LL
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