Hurricane Michael, a historic Category 4 storm, struck the Florida Panhandle early Wednesday afternoon, unleashing heavy rain, high winds and a devastating storm surge.
Here is a look at the dangerous storm by the numbers:
155 mph: The wind speed — nearly the highest possible for a Category 4 hurricane — with which Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach and Panama City. A hurricane with 157 mph or higher is a Category 5, the strongest on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.
2: The number of storm-related deaths attributed to Michael thus far, including an 11-year-old girl who local officials say was killed when part of a metal carport crashed into her family’s mobile home in Lake Seminole, Georgia.
14 feet: The maximum height forecast for the storm surge when Michael’s strong winds pushed the ocean water onto land.
12 inches: The isolated maximum amount of rain that Michael was forecast to dump across the Florida Panhandle and the state’s Big Bend region, as well as in southeast Alabama and parts of southwest and central Georgia.
9 inches: The maximum amount of rain that Michael could bring to isolated areas from Virginia to North Carolina.
701,815: The number of customers without power in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina as of Monday 8:45 a.m. ET. More than half of the customers are in Florida.
30,000: The number of workers mobilized from across the country to help restore power.
325,000: The estimated number of people in the storm’s path who were told to evacuate by local authorities.
6,000: The approximate number of people who were staying in the roughly 80 shelters across Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina on Wednesday night.
3,000: The number of personnel the Federal Emergency Management Agency deployed ahead of landfall.
35: The number of counties in Florida where Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency ahead of landfall.
2,500: The number of Florida National Guard troops activated prior to landfall.
600: The number of Florida state troopers assigned to response and recovery efforts throughout the storm.
500: The number of disaster relief workers that the American Red Cross was sending to affected areas in the Sunshine State.
