Tropical Weather Latest: Hurricane Helene is upgraded to Category 2 as it heads toward Florida

Fast-moving Hurricane Helene was advancing Thursday across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida, threatening a "catastrophic" storm surge in northwestern parts of the state as well as damaging winds, rains and flash floods hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern U.S., forecasters said. The storm was upgraded to a Category 2 storm Thursday morning.

Landfall is expected by evening. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states. In the Pacific, former Hurricane John strengthened Thursday morning back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexico's western coast with flash flooding and mudslides.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Isaac was about 690 miles (1,115 kilometers) northeast of Bermuda with top sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving east at about 12 mph (19 kph).

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Here's the latest:

President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for North Carolina on Thursday, according to the White House. The approval follows one issued for Georgia earlier in the day and one issued for Florida earlier in the week.

Federal Emergency Management Agency teams were already deployed to Florida and Alabama to support local first responders. Federal authorities have positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams.

ST. MARKS, Fla. — As Hurricane Helene barreled toward Florida’s Big Bend, Philip Tooke sat in a rocking chair on the back deck of his fish house overlooking the St. Marks River, watching and waiting.

A commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded in the town of St. Marks, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Apalachee Bay, Tooke plans to ride out this storm like he did Hurricane Michael and others — on his boat.

“This has been my livelihood. This is what pays my bills,” Tooke said of his boats. “If I lose that, I don’t have anything.”

Tooke said he’ll wait until the water is about knee-deep and then he, his brother Richard and some of their employees will hunker down on the La Victoria, the Jenny Lee and the Susan D, loosening the lines that fasten the boats to the dock as the water rises, in the hopes they won’t be battered apart.

St. Marks sits at the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers and is known to flood during storm events. On Thursday morning, water was already beginning to cover Riverside Drive, which runs through downtown.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — Rain drizzled Thursday morning outside a fire station where residents filled sandbags in the unincorporated Clyattville community outside Valdosta near the Georgia-Florida line. Helene was forecast to pass nearby as a hurricane Thursday night.

Jose Gonzales and his 14-year-old son, Jadin, shoveled sand into bags and piled them into the back of a pickup truck. Though their home is inland, Gonzales said heavy rains during Hurricane Idalia a year ago got blown under his doors and cracked a window. Some of the carpet inside got so wet he had to replace it.

For Helene, he planned to fortify his doors in hopes of preventing it from happening again.

“If it blows sideways, we might get more water inside the house,” Gonzales said. “It’s just mother nature.”

President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Georgia on Thursday morning after issuing one for Florida earlier in the week.

Federal authorities have positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams. And Florida officials have sent more than 130 generators to gas stations to ensure that people will be able to fill their cars after the storm, and extra fuel has been shipped into Florida, DeSantis said.

MEXICO CITY — As John became a hurricane for the second time, rain continued to pelt the Pacific coast state of Guerrero in Mexico where the storm caused three deaths in its first landfall earlier this week.

Authorities in Guerrero reported flooding in some low-lying neighborhoods in Acapulco. Soldiers and National Guard officers were posted outside stores in Acapulco to prevent the kind of widespread looting that broke out in the resort after Hurricane Otis hit last October.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — Joe Overby, 67, and his family were preparing Thursday to ride out the hurricane at their home in the unincorporated Clyattville community outside Valdosta, Georgia, where Hurricane Idalia a year ago toppled trees and damaged about 1,000 homes.

Overby boarded up the open front of a large storage building next to his house. He had a generator to power his refrigerator and freezer and planned to move cars to his neighbor’s yard across the street where there were no trees.

He said Idalia last year bent some sturdy oaks in his backyard, exposing the roots.

“I’m afraid this time they’re going to come down,” Overby said, adding that he planned to hunker down at home overnight with his wife, two children and four dogs.

“This old house was built in 1903,” he said. “I think it’ll hold up. You can’t even pull the nails out, the wood is so hard.”

State officials warned Florida residents of the potential risks they face even after Hurricane Helene rips through the northern part of the state, which was expected Thursday night.

Driving on roadways and tree branches falling on homes were the two biggest hazards during storms, said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a news conference in Tallahassee.

Drivers should stay off roads because of potential flooding and people should stay in the interior parts of their homes if they hear tree limbs snapping, which sounds like fireworks or a gun being fired, officials said.

“It will likely be dark by the time this storm passes,” DeSantis said. “Do not try to do any work in the dark. You don’t know what hazards are out there. The sun is going to come out. You’re going to have time to take stock of this.”

State emergency officials have sent more than 130 generators to gas stations to ensure that people will be able to fill their cars after the storm, and extra fuel has been shipped into Florida, DeSantis said.

“We haven’t seen fuel shortages, only some lines,” the governor said. “So we feel good about the fuel situation.”

Associated Press journalists are stationed across parts of Florida and Georgia to report on Hurricane Helene and the storm’s aftermath.

Photographer Gerald Herbert and videographer Stephen Smith are in Crawfordville, Florida, which is south of Tallahassee in what’s known as the Big Bend region. Reporters Brendan Farrington and Kate Payne are reporting from Tallahassee, the state’s capital.

The AP also has photographer Mike Stewart, video journalist Sharon Johnson and reporter Russ Bynum reporting from Valdosta, Georgia, which is about 72 miles northeast of Tallahassee, just across the state line.

Helene knocked out power in western Cuba as it brushed past the island, affecting some 160,000 customers in the province of Artemisa and another 70,000 in the neighboring province of Pinar del Río.

The hurricane also forced some 800 people in the region to evacuate flood-prone zones, according to Guerrillero, a local newspaper.

Pictures posted on social media showed overflowing rivers that turned some streets into creeks as people traveled by boat with their personal belongings.

On the Isle of Youth, some 25 hectares (62 acres) of tobacco seedbeds of export quality were damaged, said Raúl Fernández, director of a local company, adding that an anticipated planting schedule for October could be delayed. In addition, some 3,000 customers, about 12% of the municipality, were without power.

The Cuban government was still assessing overall damage on Thursday.

Airports in the Florida cities of Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while more than half the flights to airports in Sarasota and Fort Myers were canceled Thursday morning, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.

More than a hundred flights in and out of the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta had also been canceled while more than 100 others were delayed, but that’s a relatively small fraction of flights there. Airports in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Florida cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were seeing a smaller number of delays and cancellations

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A shift in models nudging Hurricane Helene’s projected landfall further east lessens the chances for a direct hit on Florida’s capital city if that trajectory holds, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday morning.

The shift placed the storm closer to the sparsely-populated Big Bend area where two hurricanes in the past year made landfall — Idalia in August 2023 and Debby last August. The Tallahassee metro area has a population of almost 393,000 residents.

Helene was expected to make landfall Thursday night, possibly as a Category 4 storm.

“That’s significant when you are talking about Tallahassee because yesterday we were talking about an eye wall that’s on the western part of the city,” DeSantis said at a news conference from the state’s emergency operations center in Tallahassee.

The Tallahassee area hadn’t seen a major hurricane of Helene’s expected magnitude at landfall in recent memory, the governor said.

“The more the track shifts east, the better off for Tallahassee,” DeSantis said.

Even the building where Florida’s emergency response to Hurricane Helene is organized will be put to the test when the fast-moving storm plows through Tallahassee late Thursday, possibly as a Category 4 hurricane, state officials said.

The building that houses the state’s emergency operations center in Tallahassee has walls that were built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. But during construction in the 1990s, there wasn’t enough money to ensure the roof could withstand a hurricane that strong, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Backup plans were in place should there be any problems with the building.

“It should be fine, but we’ll see,” DeSantis said. “We’ve taken precautions just in case something happens to be able to continue the continuity without any major interruption.”

MEXICO CITY — Former Hurricane John restrengthened into a hurricane on Thursday morning as it threatened areas of Mexico's western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Officials posted hurricane warnings for southwestern Mexico.

John hit the country's southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering mudslides, and damaging homes and trees. It grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours and made landfall east of Acapulco. It reemerged over the ocean after weakening inland.

PANACEA, Fla. — Rain was beginning to blow in the predawn darkness Thursday along coastal U.S. Highway 98, which winds through countless fishing villages and vacation hideaways along Florida’s Big Bend.

Shuttered gas stations dotted the two-lane highway, their windows boarded up with plywood to protect against the storm. The road was largely empty at first light, with what drivers there mostly heading northeast, towards higher ground.

This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Florida’s beach communities. The sparsely populated region is loved for its natural wonders — the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands; the dwarf cypress trees of Tate’s Hell State Forest; and Wakulla Springs, considered one of the world’s largest and deepest freshwater springs.

MIAMI — Helene was upgraded Thursday morning to a Category 2 storm and is expected to be a major hurricane — meaning a Category 3 or higher — when it makes landfall on Florida's northwestern coast Thursday evening.

As of early Thursday, hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states.

MIAMI — Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said.

Isaac was about 690 miles (1,115 kilometers) northeast of Bermuda with top sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving east at about 12 mph (19 kph).

Isaac is the ninth named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts between 17 and 25 named storms, with as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

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