A Florida sheriff on Thursday admonished residents who were not heeding an evacuation order as Hurricane Helene raced toward the state, threatening to unleash what forecasters have described as an "unsurvivable" storm surge along Florida's northwest coast.

Kenzie Stein, a Minnesota native now living in St. Petersburg, Florida, is preparing for Hurricane Helene. While the storm is still hundreds of miles away, it's rapidly intensifying and is expected to arrive late Thursday. "It’s just overcast, it’s not raining... the water you can see is calm," Stein said, describing the calm before the storm.