VALDOSTA, Ga. _ The sky turned a fire hose on this city Friday morning, knocking out power, sending scores of people to a shelter and blowing down trees onto roofs.
People huddled in their homes could hear, if not feel, the wind and rain scratching and pushing at their walls. The driving winds were blowing hard at the trees and everything else.
"Getting pounded. We're hiding in the bathroom," Brandi Sellars said on the Facebook page set up for the storm by the county early Friday. "My stomach is in knots. And no power."
Even though the storm called Hermine was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, few people ventured outside in the sustained 50-mph winds. Power was out to 20,000 residents across Lowndes County, emergency management spokeswoman Paige Dukes said.
"Trees and power lines are still going down," she said. "Right now we're in the hardest part for us."
Hurricane Hermine roared ashore at Florida's Big Bend at 1:30 a.m. Friday, packing 80-mph winds. The National Hurricane Center said it made landfall at St. Marks, due south of Tallahassee at the "bend" where Florida's Panhandle meets its Peninsula.
It was downgraded to a tropical storm just before 5 a.m.
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