HURRICANE Michael has claimed at least two lives in the US, flooding homes and streets and toppling trees and power lines in the Gulf of Mexico beachfront area after it made landfall as a raging Category 4 storm.
Florida officials said Michael, packing winds of 250km/h, was the most powerful storm to hit the state’s northern Panhandle area in more than a century.
Michael had weakened to a Category 1, with maximum winds of 145km/h as of Wednesday 8pm Eastern time (11am AEST), but that still left it an extremely dangerous storm as it crossed Georgia toward the Carolinas, that are still reeling from epic flooding by Hurricane Florence.
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READ NOWAuthorities said a man was killed by a tree falling on a Panhandle home and according to WMAZ-TV, an 11-year-old girl was also killed by a tree falling on a home in southwest Georgia.
Search and rescue crews were expected to escalate efforts to reach hardest-hit areas and check for anyone trapped or injured in the storm debris.
Pictures and video from Mexico Beach — a community of about 1000 people where Michael made landfall around 1pm Eastern time (3am AEST) — showed scenes of devastation, with houses floating in flooded streets, some ripped from their foundations and missing roofs.
Roads were filled with piles of floating debris.
Home surveillance video from Cook Street on St George Island, off the Florida Panhandle in the northern Gulf of Mexico, shows at least five feet (152cm) of storm surge waters overtaking houses and fences.
As Hurricane Michael made landfall on the island, the ocean rose around homes including the home of Mandi Jackson.
Ms Jackson, who evacuated to Auburn, Alabama, accessed her home’s surveillance footage remotely. She sent it to a neighbour, who posted it on Facebook, according to Fox 13.
Earlier, the National Hurricane Centre described Michael as “extremely dangerous” as it made landfall with the Weather Channel calling it the strongest hurricane to hit the region since records began, The Sun reported.
US President Donald Trump said he would visit the area on Sunday or Monday, after the storm had passed.
Michael brought heavy rains to Cuba on Monday on its path to Florida after leaving at least 13 people dead in Central America over the weekend.
Six people died in Honduras, four in Nicaragua and three in El Salvador, the Associated Press reported.
Hurricane Michael is the strongest hurricane to ever hit the Florida Panhandle since records began in 1851, according to Weather.com.
Only three major hurricanes that were Category 3 or higher have struck the Panhandle since 1950. They include Eloise in 1975, Opal in 1995 and Dennis in 2005.
The area is a 322km stretch lying between Alabama on the north west, Georgia on the north east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Florida, warned: “A potentially catastrophic event is developing. Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months.”
Florida Governor Rick Scott tweeted: “The time to evacuate has come and gone … SEEK REFUGE IMMEDIATELY.”
Senator Bill Nelson said a “wall of water” could cause major destruction along vulnerable areas of the Panhandle.
“Don’t think that you can ride this out if you’re in a low-lying area,” he said on CNN.
Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan bluntly advised those residents choosing to stay that rescuers won’t be able to reach them.
“If you decide to stay in your home and a tree falls on your house or the storm surge catches you and you’re now calling for help, there’s no one that can respond to help you,” he said.
Earlier, Franklin County Sheriff A.J. Smith said his deputies had gone door to door in some places urging people to evacuate.
“We have done everything we can as far as getting the word out,” he said.
Weather experts sent out similar grim warnings with National Hurricane Centre Director Ken Graham saying: “If they tell you to leave, you have to leave.”
Thousands were warned to evacuate along Florida’s coast, where schools and state offices are to remain shut this week.
Jason McDonald, of Panama City was driving with his wife and two young children, aged five and seven, to North Alabama.
He said: “We don’t know if it’s going to wipe out our house or not. We want to get them out of the way.”
Others have decided to stay put despite the “life-threatening” storm surge because of how much it costs to evacuate.
Aja Kemp said she spent more than $800 last year when her and family evacuated for Hurricane Irma.
She said: “I just can’t bring myself to spend that much money.
“We’ve got supplies to last us a week. Plenty of water. I made sure we’ve got clean clothes. We got everything tied down.”
One county in Florida cannot open their shelters because they can only withstand a Category 2 hurricane.
Shelters in Wakulla County is unable to provide protection for the residents that have been ordered to leave.
Residents were being taken by van to the neighbouring Leon County.
More than 482 kilometres of coastline are currently under threat, the National Weather Service has said.
Some regions of the US may see 30cm of rain, and storm surges of up to 3.6m.
Parts of this article originally appeared in The Sun and have been republished with permission