Hurricane Idalia’s damaging winds moved inland through northern Florida early Wednesday as a catastrophic storm surge washed through the coastal Big Bend region.
The storm came ashore near the coastal community of Keaton Beach at about 7:45 a.m. EDT packing maximum sustained winds of 125 miles an hour, making it a Category 3 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center.
By about 9 a.m. Idalia had crossed roughly half of the Florida Panhandle on its way to the Georgia border, and was about 50 miles east of Tallahassee. The storm weakened some as the center left the warm Gulf of Mexico waters, but recently remained a strong Category 2 hurricane with top winds of 110 miles an hour.
“Don’t mess with this storm,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “Don’t do anything that will put yourself in jeopardy.”
Rain drenched Florida’s capital city, home to about 202,000 people, as the storm moved through the area.
The city is inland, so storm surge isn’t the main threat, Mayor John Dailey said. “It’s the wind. It’s the wind and the trees and the power lines,” he said in an appearance on MSNBC.
Scenes of flooding began to appear. In Pasco County, north of the Tampa Bay area, the sheriff’s department posted pictures online of flooded streets and a half-submerged truck. Forecasters have warned that a long stretch of coastline in the Big Bend region—which is where Florida’s peninsula connects to the panhandle—could see a storm surge as high as 16 feet.
Storm bands swept across the panhandle and the peninsula before Idalia hit, bringing powerful wind gusts and rain. More than 245,000 utility customers in Florida were without power early Wednesday, according to poweroutage.us. The power temporarily went out while the governor was holding the morning news briefing.
More than 30 Florida counties are under evacuation orders, some of them mandatory. Schools across the state have canceled classes. President Biden approved Florida’s federal emergency declaration on Monday.
The storm is expected to bring more wind and rain as it moves through Florida and Georgia toward South Carolina. Governors in Georgia and the Carolinas declared states of emergency on Tuesday. The storm is forecast to remain a hurricane while moving across southern Georgia on Wednesday.
The storm is forecast to be in the Atlantic as a tropical storm off the coast of North Carolina by roughly midday Thursday. A hurricane warning recently covered most of the Georgia coast and part of South Carolina, while a tropical storm warning extended up to the Virginia border.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency briefed Biden on the trajectory of Hurricane Idalia and its potential effects on Tuesday. The administration urged residents of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to heed the warnings of local emergency officials.