First known fatality confirmed as Hurricane Michael slams Florida, heads for Georgia

Hurricane Michael wreaks havoc on the Florida Panhandle, with terrifying winds, splintering homes and submerging neighbourhoods. It is the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in nearly 50 years

By 8:30 p.m. (ET) Wednesday, Hurricane Michael was downgraded to a still-formidable Category 1 with maximum sustained winds of 160 kilometres an hour and higher gusts as it moved through Georgia.

The hurricane made landfall near Mexico Beach, Fla., around 1:30 p.m. (ET) on Wednesday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, as a Category 4. Michael battered the coast with winds of up to 255 kilometres an hour, bringing potentially deadly storm surge up on land. Its sustained winds were just 3.2 kilometres per hour shy of being an extremely rare Category 5.

Michael appeared so powerful – with a central pressure dropping to 919 millibars – that it was expected to remain a hurricane as it moves over Georgia early Thursday, and unleash damaging winds all the way into the Carolinas, which are still recovering from Hurricane Florence earlier this year. Environment Canada’s long-range models are calling for the possibility of heavy rainfall in parts of Nova Scotia early Friday, depending on how close the system comes to the province.

Before turning to the United States, Michael caused havoc in the Caribbean. In Cuba, it dropped more than 27 centimetres of rain in places, flooding fields, damaging roads, knocking out power and destroying some homes in the western province of Pinar del Rio. Cuban authorities said they evacuated about 400 people from low-lying areas. Disaster agencies in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua reported 13 deaths as roofs collapsed and residents were carried away by swollen rivers.

Authorities say a Florida Panhandle man was killed by a falling tree as Hurricane Michael tore through the state. Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Anglie Hightower says they received a call around 6 p.m. Wednesday, saying a tree had crashed through the roof of the man’s Greensboro home and trapped him. Emergency crews were heading to the home, but downed power lines and blocked roads were making the trip difficult.Officials hadn’t immediately confirmed the man’s name.