Waters threatened hundreds of miles of Florida coast. And Philip Tooke managed to punch out a terse but frantic message from his phone as he sat riding out Hurricane Helene − not in his house, but on his boat.

Hurricane Helene is now forecast to reach catastrophic Category 4 strength by the time it makes landfall in Florida on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center says, with storm surge potentially climbing to 20 feet along some parts of the coast.