Hurricane Idalia on Wednesday slammed into the Big Bend region of Florida, where millions of residents had evacuated or hunkered down in anticipation of a dangerous surge of tidal water, but the storm’s power ebbed as it headed toward Georgia.
Drawing strength from the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters, Idalia unleashed destructive winds and torrential downpours that were forecast to cause coastal flooding up to 16 feet (5 m) deep along the state’s Gulf Coast.
Idalia came ashore at 7:45 a.m. EDT (1145 GMT) at Keaton Beach, a town of 13,000 people in Taylor County, in the center of the Big Bend region, where the state’s northern panhandle curves into the Florida Peninsula.
“It’s just ripping through Taylor County now. Hope all is safe,” County Commissioner Jamie English said by telephone. “Winds gusting. Terrible power outages all over. Debris flying everywhere.”
The storm’s most dangerous feature would be a powerful surge of wind-driven surf that is expected to flood low-lying areas along the coast, officials said.
Surge warnings were posted for hundreds of miles of shoreline, from Sarasota to the western end of Apalachicola Bay. In some areas, the surge could rise as high as 16 feet, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
“If you end up with a storm surge that even approaches 16 feet, the chances of surviving that are not great,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said. “You would need to be in a three-story building because it is going to rise very, very high.”
There were few early reports of flooding available. By midmorning, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitoring station in Steinhatchee, 20 miles (32 km) south of Keaton, showed waters reaching 8 feet, well above the 6-foot flood stage. Stations in the more densely populated Tampa area showed water levels at a “minor flooding” stage at 10 a.m.
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