CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Helene weakened to a tropical storm over Georgia early Friday with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.

Helene continues to weaken as it moves further inland over Georgia. The storm was about 40 miles east of Macon and about 100 miles southeast of Atlanta, moving north at 30 miles per hour at 5 a.m., the Miami center reported.

The storm made landfall in northwest Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warned the massive system could produce a “nightmare” storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain to much of the Southeast of the US. There were at least three storm-related deaths.

The hurricane center said Helene made landfall near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of ​​Florida’s Gulf Coast around 11:10 p.m. Thursday. It had maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph (225 km per hour). That location was only about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where Hurricane Idalia made landfall last year with almost the same ferocity, causing widespread damage.

The eye of the hurricane passed near Valdosta, Georgia, as the storm moved quickly north into Georgia on Thursday evening. The National Hurricane Center has issued an extreme wind warning for the area, meaning hurricane-force winds of more than 115 miles per hour are possible.

At a hotel in the city of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people huddled in the darkened lobby after midnight Friday as the wind whistled and howled outside. The electricity was out and the emergency lighting in the hall, flashlights and mobile phones provided the only lighting. Water dripped from the light fixtures in the lobby dining area and roof debris fell to the ground outside.

Fermin Herrera, 20, his wife and their two-month-old daughter left their room on the top floor of the hotel, where they took shelter because they feared trees would fall on their Valdosta home.

“We heard some rumbling,” Herrera said, as she rocked the sleeping baby in a downstairs hallway. “At first we saw nothing. After a while the intensity increased. It looked like a gutter hitting our window. That’s why we decided to leave.”

Helene is the third storm to hit the city in just over a year. Tropical Storm Debby caused power outages for thousands of people in August, while Hurricane Idalia damaged an estimated 1,000 homes in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County a year ago.

“I feel like a lot of us now know what to do,” Herrera said. “We’ve seen some storms and grown a thicker skin.”

Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings that extended far offshore into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. According to the tracking site poweroutage.us, more than 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, more than 190,000 in Georgia and more than 30,000 in the Carolinas. The governors of those states, Alabama and Virginia, have all declared states of emergency.

One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed by a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached.

“When the people of Florida wake up tomorrow morning, we will wake up to a situation where there will most likely be more loss of life and certainly more property lost,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. . night.

Helene moved quickly inland after making landfall, with the center of the storm expected to move from south to northern Georgia until early Friday morning. The risk of tornadoes would also continue overnight and into the morning in North and Central Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and southern North Carolina, forecasters said. There is a risk of tornadoes in Virginia later Friday.

“Helene continues to produce catastrophic winds that are now moving into southern Georgia,” the hurricane center said in an update at 1 a.m. Friday. “Individuals should not leave their shelters and remain in place during the expiration of these life-threatening conditions.”

Even before landfall, the storm’s wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm force winds and hurricane force winds along the west coast of Florida. The water flowed over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed into rising waters.

Outside Florida, up to 10 inches of rain had fallen in the mountains of North Carolina, with another 14 inches more possible before the deluge ends, paving the way for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything else . seen in the past century.

Heavy rains began and winds increased earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could experience hurricane force winds of more than 110 miles per hour.

Two people were killed in south Georgia Thursday evening when a possible tornado struck a mobile home, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. Wheeler County is located approximately 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of Macon.

The storm made landfall in the sparsely populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and resorts where Florida’s Panhandle and the Peninsula meet.

“Please write your name, birthday and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and your family can be notified,” the sheriff’s office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice is similar to what other officials have issued during previous hurricanes.

Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region’s Apalachee Bay, planned to weather this storm as he did during Hurricane Michael and the others: on his boat. “If I lose that, I have nothing,” Tooke said.

Michael, a Category 5 storm, virtually destroyed one city, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and causing about $25 billion in damage when it hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018.

However, many heeded mandatory evacuation orders stretching from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast into low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota.

Among them were Cindy Waymon and her husband, who went to a Tallahassee shelter after securing their home and packing medicine, snacks and drinks. They wanted to stay safe given the size of the storm, she said.

“This is the first time we’re actually coming to a shelter, because of the complexity of the storm and the uncertainties,” she said.

Federal authorities deployed search and rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and insurmountable” in Apalachee Bay.

“Please, please, please take all evacuation orders seriously!” the office said, describing the golf scenario as “a nightmare.”

Known as the Forgotten Coast, this part of Florida has been largely spared by the widespread condominium development and commercialization that dominates so many Florida beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders, including extensive salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands.

“If you live down here, you’re at risk of losing everything in a big storm,” said Anthony Godwin, who lives about a half mile from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped earlier for gas. west to his sister’s house in Pensacola.

School districts and several universities have canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond.

Although Helene is likely to weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to spread into the southern Appalachians, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. Tennessee was among the states expected to get soaked.

Helene had flooded parts of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and hit the resort town of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it swept across the island.

Areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line were expecting hurricane conditions. The state opened its parks to evacuees and their pets, including horses. Curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in South Georgia.

“This is one of the biggest storms we’ve ever had,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said.

For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst attack on a major city in the Interior South in 35 years, said Marshall Shepherd, a professor of meteorology at the University of Georgia.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year due to record warm ocean temperatures.

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Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York, Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia, Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Andrea Rodríguez in Havana, Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon , contributed to this report.