Storm expected to become ‘extremely dangerous’ Category 4 – as it happened (2024)

A rapidly intensifying Hurricane Idalia was closing in on Florida’s Gulf coast on Tuesday, with landfall of the first major hurricane to strike the US this year was expected early on Wednesday.

Forecasters predicted Idalia would crash ashore as a higher-end category 3 hurricane. Category 3 hurricanes have winds between 111 and 129mph. Anything above a category 2 – on a scale of up to 5 – is considered major.

On the island of Cedar Key off the north-west coast of Florida, city commissioner Sue Colson said she expected Idalia to be the worst storm she has seen in her 32 years of living there.

Colson had a message for the almost 900 residents who were under mandatory orders to evacuate the island near the coast of the Big Bend region, AP reported.

One word – leave. It’s not something to discuss.

More than a dozen state troopers went door to door warning residents that storm surge could rise as high as 15ft (4.5 meters).

“This is a very, very serious storm,” the Wall Street Journal quoted Colson as saying on Tuesday morning.

Two blocks this way, two blocks that way, two blocks that way. Water. And all the other little residential areas are connected by bridges. Any one of those bridges can be taken out. If they do, you’re stuck on your side.

A state of emergency has been issued for 49 Florida counties as Hurricane Idalia, which is expected to rapidly strengthen into a major category 3 hurricane, approaches the Sunshine state.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday that a previous executive order was amended and an additional three counties have been added to the state of emergency declaration – Brevard, Orange and Osceola.

As Floridians brace for Idalia’s arrival, Cubans were grappling with the aftermath of the storm which had made landfall in the western tip of the Caribbean island nation on Monday, shortly before it was expected to intensify into a hurricane.

By Monday afternoon, brown flood waters had swamped the small fishing village of Guan, an hour’s drive south of Havana, Reuters reported.

Strong winds and rain persisted on Tuesday morning, one resident said.

Fallen trees are blocking roads. There are power lines on the streets, which are covered with leaves and branches, and homes in many towns have lost roofs. Unfortunately, once again, it is a sad panorama for our city.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is re-routing planes and closing Gulf routes as the storm is expected to make landfall in the Florida region on Wednesday morning.

The predicted landfall of Hurricane Idalia as category 3 hurricane on Florida’s northwest coast led to significant disruptions, with thunderstorms and strong winds expected to impact several airports in the area.

Tampa international airport was closed on Tuesday, resulting in hundreds of flight cancellations. The airport said it expected to reopen on Thursday morning.

St Pete-Clearwater international airport said it would close Tuesday 3pm local time, with plans to reopen on Wednesday at 3pm.

Idalia has strengthened with catastrophic storm surge expected in the Big Bend region, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said in their latest update at 11am eastern time.

The area, roughly between the inland cities of Tallahassee and Gainesville, is much more lightly populated than the Tampa-St Petersburg area to the south.

The storm became a category 1 hurricane overnight and was expected to beef up further in strength and size during the day Tuesday, officials at the National Hurricane Center in Miami cautioned.

“The stage is set for Idalia to rapidly intensify before landfall,” specialist Eric Blake wrote in a morning update.

Combined with extremely warm and deep waters the hurricane will be traversing … confidence is increasing in an extremely dangerous major hurricane making landfall Wednesday along the west coast or Big Bend region of Florida.

A shift in Idalia’s predicted path moved the core of the hurricane farther north from the heavily populated Tampa Bay area, but residents were warned not to focus solely on the storm’s wind field.

“The number one killer in all of these storms is water, whether it’s the storm surge that’s going to happen at the coast, or the excessive rainfall that might happen inland that causes urban flash flooding,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), said on CNN Tuesday morning.

I want to tell everybody in Florida – listen to your local officials. If they asked you to evacuate, please do so, and it doesn’t mean you have to go hundreds of miles. It could just be 10 or 20 miles inland to get out of that main area.

A storm surge of up to 12ft was expected between the Chassahowitzka national wildlife refuge and the Aucilla River, a swampy, low-lying coastal region of the state. A surge greater than three feet was predicted as far south as Tampa.

After crossing northern Florida during Wednesday, the storm will head for Georgia and the Carolinas, where a stretch of the coast was placed under a tropical storm warning early Tuesday.

More than 20 counties in western and Central Florida have issued evacuation orders ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s expected landfall on Wednesday morning, including parts of Tampa, the state’s third-largest city.

The counties that have issued mandatory evacuation orders are:

• Citrus county

• Dixie county

• Franklin county

• Gulf county

• Lafayette county

• Levy county

• Pasco county

• Pinellas county

• Suwannee county

• Taylor county

• Wakulla county

The counties under voluntary evacuation orders or advised residents to evacuate are:

• Alachua county

• Baker county

• Gilchrist county

• Hillsborough county

• Jefferson county

• Hernando county

• Madison county

• Manatee county

• Marion county

• Nassau county

• Sarasota county

• Sumter county

• Union county

• Volusia county

Hello and welcome. A rapidly intensifying Idalia grew to hurricane strength early on Tuesday and is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf coast on Wednesday, as residents in more than a dozen counties rushed to evacuate amid warnings of a life-threatening storm surge and destructive 120mph (193km/h) winds.

Idalia threatens to develop into an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” and lash the Gulf coast, with flash flooding and urban flooding also likely, the National Hurricane Center said. It currently remains a category 1 hurricane for now, but is expected to undergo rapid intensification and become an extremely dangerous category 3 hurricane before landfall on Wednesday.

The storm’s path is expected to impact a wide central portion of the state, including cities such as Tampa and Orlando, and move close to the Carolina coastline on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.

“You still have time this morning to make your final preparations ... but you gotta do that now,” the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, announced at the state’s emergency operations center.

DeSantis on Monday placed 46 of Florida’s 67 counties under an emergency declaration, and Joe Biden signed a federal order freeing up personnel and resources, including Fema search and rescue teams.

We’ll bring you the latest news from the hurricane as it comes.