Hurricane Idalia ended up making landfall at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday morning in a rural part of Florida. Labeled as a category 3, Hurricane Idalia’s direct impact was at Keaton Beach, in Taylor County, FL. This area hadn’t seen or felt the impact of a hurricane since the 1890’s. Winds were at 125 mph. Heavy rains, gushing winds and flooding reached as far south as the Tampa Bay area. Idalia caused massive destruction along Florida’s Gulf Coast, especially in the Big Bend region and the northern parts of the Nature Coast. Causing extreme damage and flooding, with 7 feet of storm surge, Idalia was actually predicted and had potential to have more than double that number. The storm left almost half a million people without power at one point. As of 6 a.m. this morning, that number is down to about 146,000 outages.
Almost all roadways are back open, with a few exceptions to the areas of direct impact; all airports are up and running, 30 of the 52 county school districts are back; 8 counties will re-open tomorrow and the remainder counties are reassessing, especially in the area's of direct impact. There are only two reported deaths thus far. The two fatalities were people losing control while trying to drive during the storm: one losing control and hitting a tree, and the other one crashing into a ditch. Having the Florida State Guards, National Guards, Coast Guard, Urban Search and Rescue, and Florida Fish and Wildlife on hand, along with over 5500 line technicians, tree professionals and damage assessors helped tremendously getting people rescued, streets and debris cleaned up, and power lines back up and restored.
Governor Ron DeSantis said, “We have requested from the federal government a major disaster declaration for all 25 counties that fell under the hurricane warning.” When asked to describe the damage he saw he said, “What I saw was just a lot. I mean, there’s a massive amount of debris because you have a lot of trees in this part of the state and there were trees knocked down. They would knock down power lines. There were branches, all kinds of stuff, kind of everywhere. You did see structural damage to buildings; I saw roofs torn off of businesses. We saw other types of hurricane damage.”
Governor Ron DeSantis, FEMA’s administrator Deanne Criswell, and Director of Florida Division of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie are out today accessing the areas of direct impact, in the Big Bend regions, which were totally flooded and closed off yesterday. Criswell said in a press conference this morning that she wanted to, “See first hand the impacts that the communities have had so we can determine what level of assistance and what other programs we’ll need to bring in to help support those people that were in the storm’s path, help them on the road to recovery.” She also added that FEMA is, “Processing Governor DeSantis’ request for major disaster declaration as quick as possible.” Idalia has also impacted Georgia, South and North Carolina. There are still reports and investigations going on throughout the Gulf Coast and the exact amount of damage has yet to be determined right now.
By-FZ
