Thursday, September 1, 2016

'Brutal Night': Hurricane Hermine Looms Just Off Florida Coast

Parts of the Florida Gulf coast were under hurricane warnings as Hurricane Hermine rotated toward the state packing 80-mph winds Thursday night.

Gov. Rick Scott urged areas along a long stretch of the coast centered on the so-called Big Bend — the elbow where the state's peninsula meets the Panhandle — to lay in food and water and make sure they had shelter ahead of the "life-threatening" hurricane — the first for the state since Wilma 11 years ago.

"You can rebuild a home. You can rebuild property," Scott said. "You cannot rebuild a life."

Hermine was "just looming off the coast" Thursday night, said Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "The whole Big Bend is in for a brutal night."

The National Weather Service said Hermine, which was centered about 40 miles southeast of Apalachicola at 9 p.m. ET, was expected to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday somewhere between Apalachicola and Horseshoe Beach.

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