With the worst of Hurricane Helene yet to impact the Tampa Bay region early Thursday, area school districts announced they would remain closed on Friday. Officials said the extra time off will allow them to clear campuses that have been used as evacuation shelters,and to assess and fix storm damage.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is closed due to high wind as Hurricane Helene impacts the Tampa Bay area. At 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Florida Highway Patrol said wind gusts had reached 60 miles per hour at the Skyway and closed the bridge to traffic. Authorities usually shut down the four-mile bridge when wind speeds hit 40 mph.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is closed, as of just before 2 p.m. on Thursday, as outer bands from Hurricane Helene, now a Category 3 hurricane churning in the Gulf of Mexico on its way to landfall in the Big Bend area, bear down on the Tampa Bay area with tropical storm-force winds.