Danny Spears spent Thursday morning helping friends move produce and other goods out of Bo Lynn's Grocery in St. Marks, as powerful Hurricane Helene bore down on the Gulf Coast community about 20 miles south of Tallahassee.
But the lifelong Wakulla County resident didn’t plan to follow a mandatory evacuation order from the county commission.
“We plan to ride it out, unless it says it’s going to be a Cat 5 coming for us. Then, we’ll for sure get in the truck and leave,” Spears said.
The grocery store stands close to Shields Marina and the Wakulla River, which goes straight into the Gulf of Mexico and often overflows onto area streets during storms.
The Wakulla County Commission on Tuesday set a mandatory evacuation for residents and visitors by 8 a.m. Thursday.
Helene, which was a Category 3 hurricane Thursday afternoon as it raced through the gulf, was forecast to create storm surge in the Big Bend region of as much as 20 feet, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Spears said similar warnings have been issued before.
“We are seasoned a bit in this, I guess,” he said. “So, we are just going to see what happens and put our faith in God.”
Helene on Thursday afternoon was picking up speed in the eastern gulf and was expected to make landfall Thursday night as a Category 3 or Category 4 storm in the Big Bend. The region also was hit by Hurricane Debby last month and by Hurricane Idalia in 2023. Both made landfall in Taylor County.
Other areas along Florida’s Gulf Coast faced storm surge. Tracking models have been nearly consistent, placing potential landfall south of Tallahassee.
Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Thursday afternoon that people along the Gulf Coast north of Tampa had reached the point where it was best to stay in place until the storm passes. But he said people closer to Tallahassee had maybe until 5 p.m. to make last-minute evacuations.
A pre-landfall analysis by the global reinsurance broker Gallagher Re estimated Helene could cause $3 billion to $6 billion in private insurance losses and as much as $1 billion in losses in federal flood-insurance and crop-insurance programs.
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis called the analysis “speculative numbers,” made early in the track forecasting.
“If I'm in the insurance market, or especially if I'm in the reinsurance market, I'm going to speculate a larger number in order to, you know, set expectations,” Patronis said while at the state Emergency Operations Center on Thursday.
“I don't think it'll be that big of a loss,” Patronis said. “Again, the biggest population center we have that's affected is, in this case, Tallahassee. It won't be that type of a number. But, now, Gallagher (Re) insures more than the state of Florida. If this storm continues its path and runs into an Atlanta, yeah, there could be a number much larger and greater.”
The Gallagher Re analysis looked at landfall in the Big Bend or Panhandle when it released its analysis Wednesday.
“Given Helene’s very large wind radius, this would still bring hurricane-force wind gusts and high storm surge to coastal areas in the heavily populated Tampa Bay area, tropical storm force winds across most of the Florida peninsula, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and southern Appalachia,” the analysis said.