Fast-moving Michael, a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale when it came ashore, was about 15 miles (25 km) northeast of Norfolk, Virginia, at 10 p.m. (0200 GMT), with top sustained winds of 50 mph (80 kph) as it headed for the Atlantic coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. At least three deaths were blamed on Michael, the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in over 50 years, and by early Friday it wasn't over yet: a tropical storm long after Wednesday's landfall, Michael stubbornly kept up its punch while barreling up the Southeast, dumping heavy rains and spreading flash flooding misery as far away as Virginia. High winds, downed trees, streets inundated by rising waters and multiple rescues of motorists from waterlogged cars played out in spots around Virginia and neighbouring North Carolina. The town where the hurricane made landfall Wednesday remained very difficult to reach by land a day later, with roads covered by fallen trees, power lines and other storm debris. It's now a Tropical Storm with winds of 50 mph and could cause power outages and flash flooding tonight in parts of North Carolina, Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic states before moving into the Atlantic Ocean early Friday. Utilities in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama reported that more than 932,000 customers were without power in the wake of Hurricane Michael. Hurricane Michael made landfall in Mexico Beach, just down the coast of Panama City, and left a wide path of destruction in its wake. The largest hospitals in Panama City are shutting down and evacuating patients due to heavy damage from Hurricane Michael. Rick Scott says people from Florida’s Panhandle to the Big Bend woke up to “unimaginable destruction.” He says Hurricane Michael have changed lives forever, and “many families have lost everything.” He says “this hurricane was an absolute monster.”

Florida officials also said Florida’s big mental hospital in Chattahoochee is “entirely cut off” by land, so they’re dropping food and supplies in from the air. A man outside Tallahassee, Florida, was killed by a falling tree, and an 11-year-old girl in Georgia died when Michael’s winds picked up a carport and dropped it on her home, debris striking her in the head. The Coast Guard said it rescued at least 27 people before and after the hurricane’s landfall, mostly from coastal homes. Fires still burned in the early morning darkness the day after Hurricane Michael made landfall in Mexico Beach, a Florida Gulf Coast beach town that doesn’t usually get much attention.
The death toll in the U.S. from Hurricane Michael rises to 17: eight in Florida, five in Virginia, three in North Carolina and one in Georgia.