Helene makes landfall in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 hurricane

CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warned that the enormous system could create a “nightmare” storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 p.m. EDT near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Gulf Coast. It had maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph ( 225 kph). That location was only about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage.

Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. More than a million homes and businesses were without power in Florida and more than 50,000 in Georgia, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states.

One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached.

“When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we’re going to be waking up to a state where very likely there’s been additional loss of life and certainly there’s going to be loss of property," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee had issued an “extreme wind warning” for the Big Bend as the eyewall approached: “Treat this warning like a tornado warning,” it said in a post on X. “Take shelter in the most interior room and hunker down!”

Even before landfall the storm's wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Florida's west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water.

Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century.

Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110 mph (177 kph).

In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The damage was reported as heavy thunderstorms raked much of the state. Wheeler County is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of Macon.

Forecaster Dylan Lusk said the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Wheeler County at 8:47 p.m. on Thursday. He said it’s one of 12 tornado warnings the office near Atlanta issued for parts of Georgia between 1 p.m. and 11 p.m.

The storm made landfall in the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida’s Panhandle and peninsula meet.

“Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified,” the sheriff's office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes.

Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the region’s Apalachee Bay, planned to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others – on his boat. “If I lose that, I don’t have anything,” Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and caused some $25 billion in damage when it struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018.

Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota.

Among them was Sharonda Davis, one of several gathered at a Tallahassee shelter worried their mobile homes wouldn’t withstand the winds. She said the hurricane’s size is “scarier than anything because it’s the aftermath that we’re going to have to face.”

Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet (6 meters) and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Apalachee Bay.

“Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously!” the office said, describing the surge scenario as “a nightmare.”

This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Florida’s beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders — the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands.

“You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm,” said Anthony Godwin, 20, who lives about a half-mile (800 meters) from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sister’s house in Pensacola.

School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond.

While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The hurricane center warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched.

Helene had swamped parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island.

Areas 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the Georgia-Florida line expected hurricane conditions. The state opened its parks to evacuees and their pets, including horses. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia.

“This is one of the biggest storms we’ve ever had,” said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.

In storm activity in the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed Wednesday as a tropical storm and strengthened Thursday back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexico’s western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador raised John’s death toll to five as communities along the country’s Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make a second landfall.

Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodríguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and María Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.

A man floats in a container on a street flooded by the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Jesus Hernandez guides his granddaughter Angelina via a container through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man floats in a container on a street flooded by the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Jesus Hernandez guides his granddaughter Angelina via a container through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man in a kayak uses a makeshift paddle as he travels through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Camryn Frick, left, and Jillian Sternick, both 22, and of Tampa, hold hands as they cross a flooded street together along Bayshore Boulevard on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Charles Starling, a lineman with Team Fishel, is pelted with rain as he walks by a row of electrical line trucks stage in a field in The Villages, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in preparation for damage from Hurricane Helene. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Guests at the Magic Kingdom break out ponchos at Cinderella Castle as bands of weather from Hurricane Helene move through Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. All four of Disney's Florida theme parks remained open Thursday as the storm passed to the west in the Gulf of Mexico. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:46 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving towards Florida, Thursday, Sept. 26 2024. (NOAA via AP)

Flooded streets after the Hurricane Helene are seen in Madeira Beach, Fla.,Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Max Chesnes/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

A sign closing down a road is posted around the Sunset Park neighborhood as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Eric Midili, 45, examines and walks around a flooded street around the Sunset Park neighborhood as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

A truck drives through a flooded street around the Sunset Park neighborhood as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Workers clear shopping carts from the parking lot at a Walmart that just closed ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Workers clear shopping carts from the parking lot at a Walmart that just closed ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A Sam's Club employee wraps wraps fuel pumps ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The Sam's Club fuel island is closed ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The Sam's Club fuel island is closed ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Darren Archer works on tying down a cover over a boat named the Susan D. docked in St. Marks, Fla. on Thursday Sept. 26, 2024. Archer, who works for the St. Marks Seafood company, plans to ride out Hurricane Helene on a boat. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

Vera Kelly, of Tallahassee, lies on a cot after evacuating to a hurricane shelter with her grandchildren and great grandchildren, at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Chloe Gray, 19, of Safety Harbor wades in the water at the Oldsmar Pier before Hurricane Helene arrives on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Oldsmar, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Lina Anasri, 19, enjoys the winds and waves along the beach as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in Pass-a-Grille, Fla. (Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Melvin Juarbe, right, attempts to assist an unidentified driver whose car stalled in floodwaters from Hurricane Helene Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in Madeira Beach, Fla. The men tried to pull the car to dry land with their pickup truck but have opted to call AAA after several failed attempts. (Max Chesnes/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Neighbors chat on a flooded street after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Surfers take advantage of heavy winds along Higgs Beach in Key West, Florida, on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Despite passing the Florida Keys by hundreds of miles, sustained winds over 40 mph churned up the usually calm, nearshore waters. (Rob O'Neal/The Key West Citizen via AP)

Louis Ward, 57, rides his bike along the the Gulfport waterfront as it takes on water as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida Panhandle, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in Gulfport. (Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Jose Gonzales and his son Jadin Gonzales, 14, fill sand bags ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Clyattville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The St. Pete Pier is pictured among high winds and waves as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle, passing west of Tampa Bay, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Sharonda and Victor Davis, of Tallahassee, sit with their children Victoria background left, and Amaya, background right, inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The grandchildren and great grandchildren of Vera Kelly, of Tallahassee, sit together after evacuating to a hurricane shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Bobby Joe Edwards, Sr., and his wife Lillie Edwards, of Walkalla, Fla., and their grandson Tavarrious Dixon, right, rest inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Cynthia Centeno, of Tallahassee sits with her family inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Mary Tanner Jerome Tanner, of Tallahassee, sit inside an evacuation shelter ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Cindy Waymon, of Tallahassee sits inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Katoria Harvey, of Tallahassee, sits with her niece Ny'Year Harvey, 3 months, inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Perry Kalip and his mother Martha Kale, of Tallahassee, arrive at a a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Jean McCloud, left, and Bernice Walker, both of Tallahassee, sit inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Vera Kelly, of Tallahassee, lies on a cot after evacuating to a hurricane shelter with her grandchildren and great grandchildren, at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Bob and Lisa Danzey, residents, look out at the water from their golf cart ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Shell Point Beach, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Bob Danzey, a resident, walks at the waters edge ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Shell Point Beach, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Crum’s Mini Mall in the coastal town of Panacea, Fla., is boarded up Thursday Sept. 26, 2024 ahead of Hurricane Helene’s expected arrival. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

This satellite image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Helene advancing across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (NOAA via AP)

People traverse a flooded street on a boat after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man lights charcoal to cook dinner in his flooded home after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man removes water from a boat while talking to neighbors after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People lounge on a flooded porch after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man pushes his bicycle through a flooded street after Hurricane Helene passed through Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Neighbors chat on a flooded street after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man spends time with his pig on his flooded porch after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People traverse a flooded street with a horse-drawn carriage after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A resident uses a piece of plastic as protection from heavy rains brought on by Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Residents use a piece of plastic as protection from heavy rains brought on by Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A resident uses a piece of plastic sheet as protection from heavy rains brought on by Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Owners secure their boats outside the Davis Islands Yacht Club Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, ahead of Hurricane Helene in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Paulette McLin takes in the scene outside their summer home ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, in Alligator Point, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Bo Manausa pulls his boot out of the water ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, in Alligator Point, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, second from right, speaks to linemen before a news conference, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, at the Tampa Electric Company offices in Tampa, Fla., as Tropical Storm Helene, expected to become a hurricane, moves north along Mexico’s coast toward the U.S. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Jerry McCullen, top of ladder left, and Carson Baze, top of ladder right, put plywood over the windows of a house ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, in Alligator Point, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Bo Manausa , right, and his friend Josh Simmons pull a boat out of the water ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, in Alligator Point, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A shopper passes by empty shelves in the bread section of a Walmart, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024 in Tallahassee, Fla. Grocery stores and gas stations were seeing heavy traffic in advance of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday night in the Big Bend area. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)

A shopper checks out nearly empty shelves in the lunch meat section of a Walmart, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024 in Tallahassee, Fla. Grocery stores and gas stations were seeing heavy traffic in advance of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday night in the Big Bend area. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)

Dave McCurley boards up the windows to his home in advance of Tropical Storm Helene, expected to make landfall as a hurricane, in Ochlockonee Bay, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A person walks in the rain after the passing of Hurricane John in Marquelia, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Alberto Cruz)

Dave McCurley boards up the windows to his home in advance of Tropical Storm Helene, expected to make landfall as a hurricane, in Ochlockonee Bay, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A traffic advisory sign on westbound S.R. 408 near downtown Orlando, Fla., informs commuters of the approaching Hurricane Helene, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Paulette McLin takes in the scene outside their summer home ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, in Alligator Point, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Visitors to the Southernmost Point marker in Key West, Fla., are hit by wind driven waves from approaching Hurricane Helene on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (Rob O'Neal/The Key West Citizen via AP)

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:51 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico, Wednesday, Sept. 25 2024. (NOAA via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer who raced yachts, owned huge chunks of the American West and transformed the news business by launching CNN in 1980, has died at age 87.

The network reported Turner died Wednesday, citing a news release from Turner Enterprises.

Turner owned professional sports teams in Atlanta, defended the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977 and donated a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities. He married three women — most famously actor Jane Fonda — and earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South.”

He once bragged: “If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.”

He was slowed in later years by Lewy Body Dementia. Long since out of the television business, he concentrated on philanthropy and his more than 2 million acres of property, including the nation’s largest bison herd.

His garrulous personality sometimes overshadowed a driven, risk-taking business acumen. By the time he sold his Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner Inc. in a 1996 media megadeal, Turner had turned his late father’s billboard company into a global conglomerate that included seven major cable networks, three professional sports teams and a pair of hit movie studios.

Turner’s signature achievement was creating CNN, the first 24-hour, all-news television network in 1980. At a time news is instantly available at anyone’s fingertips, it’s hard to recall that the idea of letting consumers decide when they choose to learn what’s going on in the world was once revolutionary.

In part, Turner’s own frustration with television news was the instigator. He often worked past 8 p.m., after the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly newscasts had already gone off the air, and was in bed by the time his local stations did their own newscasts at 11 p.m.

He took a chance by starting the operation sometimes derided as the “chicken noodle network” in the early days of cable television, living in an apartment above its Atlanta office.

“I was going to have to hit hard and move incredibly fast and that’s what we did — move so fast that the (broadcast) networks wouldn’t have the time to respond, because they should have done this, not me,” Turner recalled in a 2016 interview with the Academy of Achievement. “But they didn’t have the imagination.”

CNN’s breakthrough moment came during the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. Most television journalists had fled Baghdad, warned of an imminent American attack. CNN stayed, capturing arresting images of a war’s outbreak, with anti-aircraft tracers streaking across the sky and correspondents flinching from the concussion of bombs.

Turner was promised a continued role in CNN after his company’s sale to Time Warner for $7.3 billion in stock, but was gradually pushed out, much to his regret.

“I made a mistake,” he later said. “The mistake I made was losing control of the company.”

That same year — 1996 — saw the birth of Fox News Channel and arrival of a new dominant mogul in cable news, Rupert Murdoch. Political opinion became the stock in trade of networks like Fox News and MSNBC. Even though CNN built a worldwide news organizations particularly strong online, it struggles to this day with a diminished desire for straighter TV newscasts.

Robert Edward Turner III was born Nov. 19, 1938, in Cincinnati. When he was 9, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he grew up. After being expelled from Brown University for sneaking a coed into his room, Turner came to Atlanta to work as an account executive for his domineering father’s billboard company, Turner Advertising.

After his father’s 1963 suicide, Turner took over the company. In 1970, he bought an independent UHF station with a weak signal that didn’t even cover Atlanta.

On Dec. 17, 1976, he began transmitting the station to cable systems around the country via satellite. It became the TBS SuperStation. “It was the start of something bigger than we ever imagined,” Turner said in 1996.

TBS’ motley collection of old movies and “The Andy Griffith Show” reruns was augmented by Turner’s acquisition of baseball’s Atlanta Braves. Perennial doormats, the Braves slowly attracted fans across the nation through their superstation exposure and in the 1980s began declaring themselves “America’s Team.”

Turner, who early on donned a uniform and managed one game, helped open baseball’s free-agent price wars by signing pitcher Andy Messersmith.

In the 1980s, Turner went deeply into debt to buy MGM, a move again greeted with skepticism.

But the acquisition gave his company a huge library of vintage movies that eventually were parlayed into the TNT and Turner Classic Movies networks. His devotion to older movies earned Turner a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. He was also criticized for adding color to classic movies like “Casablanca,” which he said he did to make them appealing to a younger audience.

TBS also acquired the Hanna-Barbera animation library, which led to the launch of the Cartoon Network.

“He sees the obvious before most people do,” Bob Wright, former president and CEO of NBC, told The New Yorker in 2001. “We all look at the same picture, but Ted sees what you don’t see. And after he sees it, it becomes obvious to everybody.”

He revealed his ambitions as a younger man: “I used to tell people I wanted to become the world’s greatest sailor, businessman and lover all at the same time.”

Asked to share the secret to his success, he said: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”

For much of his life a partying roustabout who wooed beautiful women with a roguish charm, the lean, mustachioed sportsman married three times. He was married to Fonda from 1991 to 2001. She quit acting while married to Turner, but tired of his philandering and divorced him, although they remained friends.

“He was sexy. He was brilliant. He had 2 million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay,” Fonda said of her relationship with Turner.

Turner had an unexpected friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, bonding over hunting and arguments about politics over rum and cigars. A once bitter rival who compared Fox’s Murdoch to Adolf Hitler, they later reconciled over a mutual concern over the environment.

Turner built a sports empire, at one point owning professional baseball, basketball and hockey teams in Atlanta. He was best remembered at the helm of the Atlanta Braves, turning the doormats into postseason regulars by the 1990s. Their stadium, built for the 1996 Olympics, was named Ted Turner Field. The Braves replaced it in 2016 with a newer stadium north of Atlanta.

Perhaps Turner’s greatest love was for the land. He acquired millions of acres in ranches complete with roaming buffalo and was Nebraska’s largest private landholder. He spoke often of reviving the West’s bison herds, and in 2002 started a restaurant chain serving bison burgers, Ted’s Montana Grill. Researchers at Texas A&M University credited his donation of a few bulls in 2005 with helping increase the genetic diversity of the last herd of southern Plains bison.

He had a net worth of $2.5 billion in 2023, but had dropped off Forbes magazine’s ranking of the 400 richest Americans in 2021.

During a stock market bust, Turner’s net worth went from nearly $10 billion to about $2 billion in two-and-a-half years.

“To put this in perspective, I lost nearly $8 billion in 30 months,” he wrote in his autobiography, “Call Me Ted,” in 2008. “That means that, on average, my net worth dropped by about $67 million “per week,” or nearly $10 million “per day, every day, for two and a half years.”

He had enough time, and money, to devote to such lofty goals as promoting world peace and protecting the environment.

“See, my life is more an adventure than a quest to make money. Adventure is going out and doing something for the pure hell of it,” Turner once said. “You just want to see if you can do it, period. There’s no thought of gain other than your own satisfaction.”

Through the years, Turner’s antics occasionally overshadowed his business activities.

Fresh from skippering his boat “Courageous” to the America’s Cup title in 1977, a very inebriated Turner was captured by TV cameras stretched out on the floor at the victory celebration.

Turner managed to insult many with his shoot-from-the-lip style. An atheist since his only sister died of lupus at age 17, he called Christians “losers” and “Jesus-freaks,” later apologizing for both remarks.

He once suggested in a speech that unemployed Black people be used to haul mobile missiles with ropes “like the Egyptians building the pyramids.” After civil rights leaders demanded an apology, he said he was just joking.

Other times, his humor saved him from potentially awkward situations, like when he talked to an audience in Berlin in 1999. “You know, you Germans had a bad century,” Turner said, according to The New Yorker. “You were on the wrong side of two wars. You were the losers. I know what that’s like. When I bought the Atlanta Braves, we couldn’t win, either. You guys can turn it around. You can start making the right choices. If the Atlanta Braves could do it, then Germany can do it.”

Turner, father of five children, grabbed a leadership role in American philanthropy with his Sept. 18, 1997, pledge to give $1 billion, or $100 million a year for 10 years, to United Nations charities. Even as Turner’s fortune shrank after the AOL Time Warner merger, he continued giving money to the U.N., calling it the best hope for peace.

He promoted a range of humanitarian causes. Turner joined former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn to start the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Turner fretted publicly about the world’s problems.

“If I had to predict, the way things are going, I’d say the chances are about 50-50 that humanity will be extinct in 50 years,” Turner said in 2003. “Weapons of mass destruction, disease, I mean this global warming is scaring the living daylights out of me.”

As he poured millions into nonprofits on a global scale, Turner was also fond of spreading his wealth in small ways. He once gave $500 to a volunteer fire department that helped extinguish a blaze on one of his ranches. Another time he lent personal paintings for an exhibit at a Bozeman, Montana, museum.

Former Associated Press correspondent Ryan Nakashima contributed to this report.

FILE - Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner holds up the World Series trophy on the field at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium after the Braves won the 1995 World Series, Oct. 28, 1995, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

FILE - Actress and political activist Jane Fonda and media mogul Ted Turner arrive at a party in support of Proposition 128 in Los Angeles on Nov. 6, 1990. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - Actress Jane Fonda and CNN founder Ted Turner pose together at the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Dinner, Nov. 6, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

FILE - Ted Turner is seen at his desk inside the CNN Center in 1982. (Nancy Mangiafico/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)

FILE - Ted Turner speaks during the CNN World Report Contributors banquet in Atlanta on May 4, 1995. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)