Brianna GarnierAfter wading through waist-high water, it turned out to be a street. Brianna Garnier She told BBC News that in 12 years of living on Holmes Beach, she had never seen such a strong storm surge.
“It looks like rapids outside,” the 29-year-old said by phone.
“It was so powerful, you could see everything being taken away – chairs, cushions, coolers, trash.”
Ms. Garnier was previewing Hurricane Helene, which barreled toward Florida on Thursday night as a Category 4 storm with winds of up to 130 mph (215 kph) and was deemed “extremely dangerous” by the National Hurricane Center .
Authorities warned it could bring “catastrophic” and “unsurvivable” storm surges, with flooding as high as 20 feet (6m).
She watched the storm quickly intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane, but said she felt she needed to stay behind and try to protect her one-story home on a barrier island off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
“Water is already in our garage,” she said. “We have sandbags on every door – anything to stop it from coming in.”
Ms. Garnier said as she walked through the area, she saw water flowing inside basically every house along the coast.
“You see images like this on the news, but I’ve never seen it in my backyard.”
“That’s weird.”
anna maria island residents ML Ferguson He told BBC News that as the hurricane approached, homes and businesses saw water pouring into their buildings.
The streets now look like rivers, she said.
Water quickly filled the beachfront bar where she worked – the Bridge Tender Inn Dockside & Tiki Bar – with waves splashing over the sign and large clumps of seaweed gathering near the tables.
ML Ferguson
ML Ferguson“We’re very resilient,” she said. “We maintain a ‘this too shall pass’ attitude.”
When she got home, water started creeping up onto the porch.
“Oh my gosh, this is actually step two,” she told the BBC in a telephone interview. “My house is facing flooding.”
Ms Ferguson quickly moved some tables so she could put things on them to prevent flooding from damaging property.
But as she spoke to BBC News, a man driving down her street caused a spray of water to hit the car.
“The water’s coming in,” she exclaimed, then flushed the phone to try to stop it.
Cannon GreggAn oyster farmer in Big Bend, Florida’s Wakulla County has spent the past few days trying to protect his farm by sinking it to the bottom of the sea.
His farm was previously destroyed during Category 5 Hurricane Michael, which hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018, and Mr. Gregg said he was determined to learn from his mistakes.
“Hopefully the farm will be sitting on the ocean floor safe and sound, but nothing is certain,” he said. “But anything can happen.”
To weather the storm, Mr. Gregg planned to shelter in his hometown of Tallahassee with friends who had shelter.
The city is also in the hurricane’s projected path and has not experienced a storm of this severity in recent memory.
“It’s almost a ghost town now. Everything is closed. Everything is boarded up,” he said.
ReutersDenis O’Connor Badalamenti She’d weathered countless hurricanes in her decades living in Florida, but Helen was more nervous than ever.
“I thought it was going to be a disaster,” the 62-year-old told BBC News from her home in Bradenton, just a few blocks from the ocean, as the storm moved closer to landfall.
“I feel like we’re always in a position where we could be a target and then get quarreled at the last minute, but I don’t think we’ll be lucky again.”
Her mother’s home has flooded six times over the years, and this morning the water was reaching their driveway. Her family taped off all the doors in hopes of stopping the flooding.
Ms O’Connor Badalamenti said: “This is huge. It’s horrific.”
She said that following the guidance of emergency officials, we have stocked up on supplies and prepared a variety of food in case of a power outage.
“We are prepared for the worst.”
Michael BobbittA clam farmer on Cedar Island in Big Bend Island, Florida, said some people in his community decided to stay despite the warnings.
“The last few hours have really been frantic pleading for people to get out,” Bobbitt, 48, told the BBC on Thursday before the storm made landfall.
“In Florida, we believe we’re going to get through this and it’s no big deal. But this is not one of those storms.
He added that locals have been trying to secure the island’s clam farms by “sandbagging as many buildings as possible” and boarding up windows.
“The atmosphere was somber,” Mr. Bobbitt said.
“A lot of people hugged each other and cried as they left the island, saying ‘I wish we had a home to go back to.'”
Mickey MooreMickey MooreThe 54-year-old has lived in his Tallahassee home for about 15 years, and the worst thing about a hurricane is a power outage.
This, he said, worries him.
His home is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Gulf of Mexico and in the path of the storm.
“Four categories — that’s too big,” he said during a break from playing Monopoly with his two sons and wife.
“We’ve been lucky in past storms,” he added. “We don’t take that for granted.”
