Coastal Georgia under tropical storm, storm surge warnings in wake of Hurricane Milton
This story was updated on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 11:54 a.m.
Hurricane Milton has weakened to a Category 1 storm, but parts of Coastal Georgia are still under a tropical storm warning and a storm surge warning on Thursday.
The storm was pulling away from the east coast as of 11 a.m. Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The NHC’s storm surge warning — indicating danger of life-threatening conditions from rising water — is in effect along the east coast of Florida up to an area of Coastal Georgia that includes Cumberland Island, Jekyll Island, Brunswick and St. Simons Island. Those areas cloud see surges as high as 5 feet over the next several days.
“The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline,” the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory.
“The deepest water will occur along the immediate coast in areas of onshore winds, where the surge will be accompanied by large and dangerous waves,” it added.
A tropical storm warning is also in effect Thursday stretching from Florida along the entire Georgia coast and up to Edisto Beach, South Carolina.
And a wind threat is in effect for areas of Georgia including Folkston, Homerville, Waycross, Douglas, Alma and Jesup, according to the National Weather Service.
Over 35,000 people were without power in Georgia as of 11 a.m. Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us. The bulk of the outages are centered in the areas that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp put under a state of emergency due to Milton.
That state of emergency remains in effect through Oct. 16 and includes the following counties: Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Berrien, Bibb, Brantley, Brooks, Bryan, Bulloch, Butts, Camden, Candler, Charlton, Chatham, Clinch, Coffee, Cook, Crisp, Dougherty, Echols, Effingham, Evans, Glynn, Houston, Jeff Davis, Lanier, Liberty, Long, Lowndes, McIntosh, Monroe, Muscogee, Pierce, Screven, Tattnall, Toombs, Ware and Wayne.
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