Hurricane Helene, hundreds of miles away from the region in the Gulf of Mexico, managed to make its presence known to the entire state of Florida on Thursday.
Eying a late Thursday or early Friday landfall in the Big Bend area, where life-threatening storm surges of 18-20 feet were expected, the huge hurricane brought heavy winds and high waters to Charlotte and Sarasota counties during the day.
The long storm brought through several tornado warnings throughout the day, including one investigated that may have touched down between Cape Haze and Wellen Park late Thursday…