Major Hurricane Michael bearing down on Florida Panhandle
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Fast and furious Hurricane Michael barrelled toward the Florida Panhandle late Tuesday night with 125 mph winds and a potentially catastrophic storm surge of 13 feet, giving tens of thousands of people precious little time to board up and get out.
Drawing energy from warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the storm strengthened rapidly into a potentially devastating Category 3 during the day and just kept getting stronger in the hours ahead of an expected Wednesday landfall. Forecasters said Michael was expected to strengthen further overnight and become a Category 4 brute before slamming ashore.
The core of the storm was expected to crash ashore around midday Wednesday near Panama City Beach, along a lightly populated stretch of fishing villages and white-sand spring-break beaches.
Florida officials said that roughly 375,000 people have been urged or ordered to evacuate. Those evacuations stretched across 22 counties from the Florida Panhandle down into north central Florida. But there were fears, however, that some people weren’t heeding the calls to get out despite predictions of a life-threatening storm surge.