Conditions deteriorate in Steinhatchee in the hours before Helene's landfall

AccuWeather

AccuWeather spoke live with CNN's Michael Yoshida in Steinhatchee, Florida, a little more than two hours before Hurricane Helene was projected to slam into the area.

Transcript

00:00One of the places that are in the crosshair is a little farther east towards Dean Hatchie here,

00:05where our news correspondent from CNN, Michael Yoshiba, is reporting.

00:11Things going down pretty quickly here, Michael, in the last few hours.

00:21For sure, you can see now we're starting to see the wind, the rain pick up. Much different

00:26visual from just a few hours ago when we were speaking with all of you guys.

00:30And you talk about Dean Hatchie, the officials here, the people who work here, who live here.

00:35As I've been speaking with them throughout the last day and a half, the concern was all of that

00:40storm surge potential, all of that water. This is a low line area. We're right on

00:46the Dean Hatchie River. Just beyond the point back there is where you get into the bay,

00:51get into the Gulf. And the marina right here, they say when they've had previous storms, say

00:57Italia from last year, others, that when they get all of that water, some of the areas in here,

01:04they start to rise, obviously. So if you look at this floating dock right here,

01:09to put it in perspective, the owner of this marine is saying in previous storms,

01:12they've seen it rise all the way up. You can see this metal pole here all the way above it

01:17and actually start to float away. That's why this time around, after they lost three of their

01:23docks during Italia, they've tied them together, tried to anchor them down, tried to prepare as

01:27best they can for when all of that water arrives. And of course, long before that happens, we're

01:32going to be out of here up to higher ground that we've scouted out. But all of that water has been

01:38on top of people's minds throughout the last day and a half as they prepared. The sheriff's office

01:43has been going around asking people, knocking on doors, making sure if they hadn't evacuated,

01:48did they want to reconsider because conditions, as you mentioned, it's starting to really go

01:53downhill at this point. Yeah, Michael, and for your own safety, I just wanted to let you know,

01:57we have now moved that eyepath a little farther to the east. You are definitely in the right front

02:03quadrant. Your storm surge, 10 to 15 feet, it's going to change very quickly. Get yourself to

02:09higher ground and we'll keep in touch with you over the next couple of hours. Our news partner,

02:14CNN News correspondent, Michael Yoshiba in Steenhatchee, Florida, not a good place to be

02:21right now. Here's that landfall forecast. We do want to let you know there it is as a category

02:26four hurricane. I want to show you the landfall forecast. We have adjusted a little farther east

02:31now, a little east of St. Mark's toward the St. Mark's Lighthouse. That's kind of a point of

02:36reference. That means Steenhatchee, Horseshoe Beach, you're going to be in the worst part of

02:41this storm with that storm surge. Tallahassee, you're still going to be within that western

02:46part of the high wall. There's our wind gusts, the worst of the conditions around midnight.

02:51We'll be talking with Allie Reed here shortly. She is stationed in Tallahassee.

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Transcript

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