TALLAHASSEE, Florida – As Hurricane Helene continues to strengthen while quickly moving towards the Florida Big Bend, people who chose to ride out the storm are making their final preparations.

In Tallahassee, it’s a hard task to find an open gas station. Many of the city’s grocery stores and restaurants have already been boarded up by Thursday afternoon.

“It’s about the only place that I found in about ten miles,” said Jim Rivenberg, who KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding met at a busy gas station.

Rivenberg was one of many looking for their last-minute supplies to ride out the now Category 4 hurricane coming their way.

Jim Rivenberg: “I got three tall Buds. And two quarts of Miller,”

Gage Goulding: “Is that going to get you through?”

Jim Rivenberg: “Yeah. Till tomorrow. Easy enough. It’ll all be open tomorrow.”

Others were looking to top off their gas tanks, not knowing when the next time they’ll be able to. Widespread power outages are forecast for the Tallahassee metro.

“We hunkering down, man. We did all our preparations, got everything put up,” said Derrick Thompson. “We gonna go home and weather this thing up like a true Floridian.”

Hurricane Helene has been bringing high winds and storm surge to communities all along the Gulf Coast. The storm is forecast to make landfall as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm late Thursday evening.