Florida, Georgia Brace for Expected Landfall of Major Hurricane on Thursday — OPIS

The National Hurricane Center on Wednesday said it expects Hurricane Helene to strengthen into a Category 3 or stronger storm before it makes landfall along Florida's Big Bend Coast on Thursday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have declared states of emergency as Helene draws closer to the Gulf Coast and President Biden approved major disaster declarations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist both states.

In its 11 a.m. ET advisory, NHC said Helene could bring life-threatening storm surges to the entire west coast of Florida and the Big Bend coast along with hurricane-force winds across portions of northern Florida and southern Georgia as the center of the storm moves inland.

In addition, the agency said Helene will bring considerable and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding to portions of northern Florida, the Southeast, the Southern Appalachians and the Upper Tennessee Valley Wednesday through Friday.

Helene, which was about 500 miles south-southwest of Tampa Wednesday morning, has maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. On the NHC forecast track, the center of the hurricane will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico later Wednesday and into Thursday, before strengthening into a major hurricane as it draws closer to the Big Bend coast on Thursday evening.

Category 3 hurricanes have maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

The agency said the storm will weaken after making landfall, but cautioned that its forward speed will bring damaging winds, especially in gusts, well into the Southeast.

On its projected path, Helene could affect operations at Chevron's 375,200 b/d Pascagoula, Miss., and Vertex's Energy's 75,000 b/d Mobile, Ala., refineries.

A Chevron spokeswoman on Wednesday said the company is following storm preparedness procedures. A Vertex representative did not respond to OPIS inquiries by the time of publication.

The Chevron spokeswoman also said the company has shut in production and evacuated personnel at some of its offshore oil-and-gas platforms. Similarly, Shell and BP also reported production shut-ins and evacuation ahead of Helene.

Latest data by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement showed 16.2% of the offshore Gulf of Mexico oil production and 11.2% of gas production were shut in as of midday Tuesday. Offshore oil and gas production accounts for 15% of the total U.S. output.

In addition, the approach of Helene has led to restrictions at several U.S. ports.

The Coast Guard on Wednesday morning declared condition "Yankee" at the port of Tampa. The designation means gale force winds could affect operations within 24 hours. The Port of Mobile is operating under Port Condition "X-ray" and remains open to all commercial traffic with gale force winds expected within 48 hours.

Helene, if it sticks to the forecast path, would mark the third hurricane to make landfall along Florida's Big Bend within the last 14 months, following Debby in August and Idalia in August 2023.

Heavy rain, potential flooding and hurricane-force winds in densely populated Florida and parts of the Southeast would likely hamper fuel demand. While Florida imports most of its fuels by water, other Southeast states are supplied from Texas and Louisiana refineries through the Colonial Pipeline.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

--Reporting by Frank Tang, ftang@opisnet.com; Editing by Jeff Barber, jbarber@opisnet.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 25, 2024 12:31 ET (16:31 GMT)

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