AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Hurricane Helene has strengthened into a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 130 miles per hour, and it's lashing Florida's Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center warns that it could intensify further before making landfall this evening in Florida's Big Bend region. NPR's Debbie Elliott is there and joins us now, Hi, Debbie.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.

CHANG: OK, so what's happening where you are right now?

ELLIOTT: You know, not a lot - not yet, anyway - mostly rain on and off all day, some gusty winds. But I think the real effects will come in Tallahassee a little bit later as the storm, you know, nears landfall. A lot of businesses do appear to be closed around town, as are the college campuses here, including Florida A&M and Florida State. There's not going to be the deadly storm surge into Tallahassee that's such a threat along the coast. But certainly, there will be some flash flooding here with all of the rain that's going to come in and hurricane-force winds. You know, Tallahassee is particularly vulnerable. If you've ever been here, there are these beautiful tree canopy here, these large...

CHANG: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: ...Majestic live oaks, lots of tall pine trees. You know, those are going to go down and probably cause a lot of damage and knock out the power. Now, we're already seeing power outages elsewhere - tens of thousands without electricity even before this storm makes landfall. Other impacts as well because Helene is such a huge storm - it's hundreds of miles wide. Over on Florida's west coast, roads and bridges are flooding. There have been tornado warnings - also surge already coming in places like Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota.

CHANG: Wow. It's so wide. Forecasters have really ramped up their warnings about this hurricane, right? Like, what are they saying at this point?

ELLIOTT: Yeah. You know, the National Hurricane Center in the past 24 hours has been using dire language, especially when they're talking about the storm surge potential. When we talk about storm surge, you know, we're talking about that wall of water that the hurricane will push ashore. Just east of the eyewall, they're saying that could potentially be up to 20 feet...

CHANG: Oh, my God.

ELLIOTT: ...In this storm - or, as Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan put it, enough water to cover a two-story home, if you think about it that way. Here's the language that he used today.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MICHAEL BRENNAN: A really unsurvivable scenario is going to play out here in this portion of the Florida coastline. In addition to that storm surge, you're going to have destructive wave action on top of that that can destroy houses, move cars.

ELLIOTT: Unsurvivable...

CHANG: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: ...Was the word that he used. You know, Ailsa, that's something that really struck me. I've covered a lot of storms in my career, and that is some very strong language from forecasters.

CHANG: Extremely strong - so how have people been preparing while they're hearing this dire language?

ELLIOTT: You know, dozens of evacuation orders all along the coast - shelters are open. People are going to them. The governor reports more than 80 health care facilities, including hospitals and nursing homes, have moved patients to safety. Airports are closed, including here in Tallahassee and down in Tampa. And then people are securing their property, moving to higher ground if they think they're at risk. Certainly, people, let's say, who might live in a mobile home - they need to be getting out.

I ran into Captain Bill Joe Denton. He's from Carrabelle, down on the coast, just sort of south of Tallahassee. He lives in his charter boat. It's called the Island Getaway. And he and a friend, Matt Morton, were fleeing by water.

BILL JOE DENTON: We live in Carrabelle...

MATT MORTON: Yep.

DENTON: ...And we're getting out of the way of this storm. It's...

MORTON: It's going to be a rough one.

DENTON: ...Headed right towards it.

MORTON: Yep.

DENTON: We don't have many come that way. We dodge most of them, but this is a bad one, and so we took off. We're headed west...

MORTON: Yep.

DENTON: ...You know, as far as we need to go, so...

ELLIOTT: They're going to be looking for safe harbor somewhere west of Panama City. So people are taking this seriously. And before we go, I should note that this is already starting to affect a huge part of the Southeast. Georgia, the Carolinas, having tornado warnings and flash flood warnings today along with power outages.

CHANG: That is NPR's Debbie Elliott in Tallahassee, Fla. Thank you so much, Debbie, and stay safe, please.

ELLIOTT: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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