It is a quiet part of the Florida coast, known for sport fishing, clam farming and wooden houses on stilts, perched right on the water.
But the small island of Cedar Key, Florida, is among the coastal communities expected to face the brunt of Hurricane Idalia, which strengthened into a Category 2 storm on Tuesday afternoon.
Idalia is projected to make landfall in the United States during the early hours of Wednesday. Meteorologists predict it will strike as a Category 3 cyclone on the five-tier wind scale, passing the threshold for what is considered a “major” hurricane.
“This is a life threatening situation,” the National Hurricane Center warned in a bulletin Tuesday afternoon.
The centre predicted a storm surge up to 4.6 metres (15 feet) high along the stretch of coastline from the Aucilla River down to Yankeetown, an area that includes Cedar Key and quaint destinations like the scallop-harvesting town of Steinhatchee.
“That is a storm surge that — if you’re there while that hits — it’s going to be very difficult to survive that, so please take appropriate precautions,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters from the state capital Tallahassee.
Original from www.aljazeera.com