Hurricane Helene made landfall along the Florida coast Thursday night as a powerful and potentially disastrous Category 4 storm, bringing chaos to a wide swath of the Gulf Coast and threatening high winds, storm surges and drenching rainfall.

Helene was about 45 miles (70 kilometers) southeast of Tallahassee, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour, the Miami-based UA National Hurricane Center said late Thursday.

The massive storm formed quickly this week and continued to strengthen as it raged over the warm waters of the Gulf.

Helene’s storm surge – the wall of seawater pushed ashore by hurricane force – can reach as high as 6.1 meters in some places.

“This is not a survival event for people in coastal or low-lying areas,” said Jared Miller, the sheriff of Wakulla County on Florida’s coast. “Please pay attention to the evacuation orders in effect as time is running out to do this.”

States of emergency have been declared in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Alabama.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had urged North Florida residents to flee before time runs out, warning of flooding, road closures and power outages. Although the storm is expected to weaken once it makes landfall, it is moving quickly and may continue to spread.

“You’ll probably have hurricane force winds 50 miles out from the eye of the storm, and then you’ll continue to see the surge, especially in that Big Bend area,” DeSantis said at a news briefing Thursday evening. , held at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee.

John Dailey, the mayor of Tallahassee, the Florida capital that is in Helene’s direct path, said the hurricane could be the strongest storm to ever make a direct hit on his city. Helene could cause “unprecedented damage like we have never experienced before as a community,” Dailey told reporters on Wednesday.

Climate scientists have warned that global warming is increasing the number and strength of powerful hurricanes. While no individual storm can be blamed on climate change, the new pattern of more and stronger hurricanes is being driven by the planet’s warning oceans and seas. Much of Helen’s power came from the strength she gathered over the Gulf of Mexico, which has reached unprecedented temperatures in recent years.

Helene is forecast to be one of the largest storms to hit the region in years, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, told the Associated Press. He said that since 1988, only three Gulf hurricanes were larger than Helene’s predicted size: 2017’s Irma, 2005’s Wilma and 1995’s Opal.

Parts of Florida felt the impact of the storm before it made landfall. In communities like Fort Myers Beach, Florida, water levels were already 2 feet above normal earlier on Thursday. Cities like Tampa and St. Petersburg saw storm surges of 5 feet high on Thursday evening.

The hurricane is expected to move along the southeastern coast once it makes landfall, from Florida to North Carolina. At least 50 million people have been warned of hurricane and tropical storms.

As night fell in the North Carolina mountains, emergency responders asked residents to seek safety on higher ground as Hurricane Helene approached land. The area has already been hit by heavy rain from another storm, and forecasters predicted another 9 to 14 inches of rain could fall as the remnants of Helene move through the area Thursday evening and Friday.

“With a storm like this, we’re seeing flooding like we’ve never seen before,” said Jimmy Brissie, director of emergency services for Henderson County, south of Asheville.

Helene knocked out power in western Cuba as it swept past the island, affecting about 160,000 customers in Artemisa province and another 70,000 in neighboring Pinar del Río province. According to Guerrillero, a local newspaper, the hurricane also forced about 800 people in the region to evacuate flood-prone areas.

The storm flooded parts of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed along the coast and hit the resort town of Cancun.

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

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report