Tranquil beach day in the Florida Panhandle ahead of Helene

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Shell Point Beach in Florida on Sept. 24, showcasing a beautiful beach day just before conditions are expected to deteriorate.

Transcript

00:00We do continue our team coverage this afternoon.

00:02That's right, AccuWeather storm chaser and meteorologist Tony Laubach is live right now

00:06in Shell Point Beach, Florida with more on how people and communities are preparing for the storm.

00:11Tony?

00:15Well, I'll tell you, people are preparing pretty good here because I haven't seen a lot of them

00:19out and about. You want to talk about a postcard picture perfect beach day. Today is the day. It

00:26is hot, it is sunny, but notice here there's nobody, nobody to speak of anywhere around me

00:32here at Shell Point Beach, Florida. Now granted, I've only been up and down this immediate area

00:37here. Really what I've seen more of are people towing boats getting out of here. I've seen a

00:42couple of utility trucks that have kind of rolled through here. So it seems right now that folks are

00:49kind of taking everything kind of seriously, but it kind of surprises me in a way having been on

00:53a few of these hurricanes coming down on the beaches that there aren't more people actually

00:57out here right now. This is one of the area state parks and it is usually one of the bigger places

01:01here for fishing. I've seen a lot of fishing people kind of leaving the area on my way out

01:06here on the drive between here and Tallahassee, but generally speaking it has been pretty quiet

01:11here on Shell Point Beach just in the brief time that I have been out here on what I would consider

01:16to be a very, very lovely picturesque beach day. Now one of the things I always like to say when I

01:21talk about impending storms like this is today is as good as it's going to get. We start to roll

01:27things downhill and that's probably going to take place tomorrow. We know we are kind of focusing

01:31really on that landfall that likely will occur on Thursday evening, but this is going to be a big

01:38storm. So we're going to start to see those bands work their way in maybe as early as tomorrow and

01:42we're going to see those conditions really start to go downhill as we get into the day on Wednesday

01:48and then really fall off the cliff as we get in on Thursday here and of course you see the

01:53scene behind me here. Tranquil, white blue skies, white clouds, the water is not very rough at all.

02:00Just imagine what this is going to look like 36, even 48 hours from now as Helene starts to work

02:05its way up into this region. Obviously landfall going to be in this area here. What side of the

02:10eyewall this area is going to be, folks in Tallahassee I think are going to be somebody

02:15of concern. Even if the eye moves east of here, we are still going to see some impacts up this

02:21direction here. Certainly going to change the persona, certainly going to change the dynamic

02:27from the weather that we're seeing here today. And again, very very quiet, almost a ghost town feel.

02:33You see the houses here behind me, none of them boarded up at this point. I wonder if the

02:36residents are going to start doing that as we head into tomorrow here as we get closer to Helene's

02:42landfall likely on Thursday evening guys. All right, thank you so much for that report there

02:46Tony. It was going to be a very different scene there 36, 48 hours from now and as you mentioned

02:52even tomorrow. So we'll be checking back in with you throughout the afternoon.

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