2023-08-31 01:59:12
A trail of destruction is what the first images of Idalia’s passage through northwestern Florida show on Wednesday afternoon (08.30.2023), a state in which the hurricane, now downgraded to a storm, caused historic flooding, road closures , houses destroyed and where more than 260,000 houses and buildings are still without power.
Idalia, which made landfall early in Florida with winds of 205 km per hour, is the most powerful hurricane in the last 125 years to impact the region of Florida known as “Big Bend”, after an unnamed cyclone made landfall there in 1896 with that same power.
The hurricane that ripped into the west coast of Florida forced residents to run to higher ground.
Thomas, a 41-year-old paper mill worker in Perry, a small town in the interior of Big Bend, fled with her family and some friends to a motel, thinking it would be safer than riding out the storm at home. But when the eye of Idalia passed around 8:30 am, a loud whistling sound entered the air and the strong winds ripped the roof off the building.
Debris fell on his pregnant daughter, who was in bed. Fortunately, she was not injured.
“It was terrifying,” Thomas said. “Things were going very fast… Everything was spinning.”
A great storm surge
In Cedar Key, north of Tampa Bay, the storm surge raised the sea up to 8 feet (2.4 meters) above its normal level on Wednesday morning, according to the first information, a record higher than the record in this part that produced Hurricane Hermine in 2016.
A boardwalk at the Clearwater Harbor Marina in Clearwater, Florida, was inundated by storm surge from Hurricane Idalia.Image: MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images
At the moment there are two fatalities that this powerful cyclone has indirectly left, two people who died in traffic accidents while driving in the midst of “extreme” weather conditions, according to the Highway Patrol (FHP), although the governor The state’s Ron DeSantis said there are “no confirmed deaths.”
In the town of Steinhatchee, in Taylor County, one of the hardest hit in Big Bend, storm surge and rain flooded entire areas.
One of the residents of this town, Daniel Dickert, told the Tampa Bay Times newspaper that he had never seen a flood with water levels as high as the one caused by Idalia.
Dickert’s truck was submerged to almost three feet (nearly a meter) and docks in the area were wrecked, with sailboats thrown inland by hurricane force winds and storm surge.
However, his home was not seriously damaged. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought,” she said.
The action of the hurricane winds also reached the city of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, where a hundred-year-old oak tree broke in two and fell on the governor’s mansion.
Makatla Ritchter (left) and her mother, Keiphra Line, wade through the floodwaters after having to evacuate their flooded home in Tarpon Springs. Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Despite losing intensity after making landfall, Idalia is a tropical storm this afternoon not without danger as it passes through the southeastern United States, generating life-threatening storm surges, damaging winds, tornadoes and torrential rains.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, telephoned the governor of Florida, as well as those of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, Brian Kemp, Henry McMaster and Roy Cooper, respectively, to reiterate the support of the administration federal in recovery efforts.
According to US media, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell, will travel to Florida tonight to see first-hand the severity of the damage.
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