Never a good sign when the death toll on the first day is close to half a hundred, I fear this could come close or even surpass Ian in terms of number of fatalities.
I don’t think this will be the costliest storm on record mainly because the bulk of the storm hit swamps, definitely could get close to Ian’s damage cost.
Even though the wind damage is lacking, (understandably so since again, bulk of the storm hit swamp land), the surge absolutely verified.
Places like Keaton beach have been mostly wiped off the map and others like horseshoe beach, Steinhatchee. and cedar key are devastated.
The NHC have already confirmed 15ft+ surge along the coast and I would imagine the peak will be close to the maximum 20ft predicted.
To say nothing of the biblical levels of flooding across the central eastern states, it’s shocking to me the shear ferocity of hurricane landfalls in the big bend area since 2016.
5 hurricanes with 3 being majors and most astonishing 2 being cat4+, the big bend in 173 years of record keeping has never seen a cat4 hurricane and now they’ve been hit with a cat5 and cat4 in the span of 6 years.
The big bend of Florida was literally known for being a “safe spot” from hurricanes because they use to hit so rarely but now they’re getting rocked pretty much every year now.
Safe to say Helene’s 60+ year run time as a name is over and done now.