TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday said his state needs to prepare for Hurricane Helene, which is on a northerly runway in the Gulf of Mexico and set to become a major hurricane before slamming into the state Thursday.
DeSantis (R) said during a news conference in Tampa that Helene is on a path that would allow it to rapidly intensify before making landfall somewhere in the Big Bend, with the state capital projected to be directly in its path. The latest weather models, which usually show various potential paths for a storm, all predicted a similar catastrophic track, DeSantis said.
“There is clearly a pathway for this to rapidly intensify before making landfall,” DeSantis said during the news conference, which was held at a staging area for utility crews that was set up ahead of the storm. “This is a very big storm, and you’re going to have impacts well outside of what a spaghetti model would have,” he added, referencing a type of model that shows various possible paths.
DeSantis said residents need to be prepared to lose electricity and to know evacuation zones. But he said he still refused to scare people into evacuating across the state, despite the potential for a historic disaster. He said there is still a chance that Helene could shift east and become a weaker storm, and he would rather only provide residents with information and allow county emergency managers to call the shots.
