STEINHATCHEE, Fla. — Powerful Hurricane Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach, Fla., on Wednesday morning before continuing into Georgia and South Carolina, generating tornadoes, dangerous flooding and “life-threatening” winds in its wake, authorities said.
Idalia moved into Florida’s Big Bend region about 7:45 a.m. Eastern time as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm, with winds approaching 125 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said, tying a 1896 hurricane as the strongest on record to hit that area. After coming ashore, Idalia turned northeastward and weakened in strength but was still expected to wreak havoc as a tropical storm in Georgia and the eastern Carolinas well into Thursday, forecasters said.
Two deaths were reported as of midafternoon, both in Florida and involving car crashes during the storm.
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Heavy rainfall and widespread flooding were seen from Fort Myers Beach northward and in communities in southern Georgia, with officials expecting more flooding after the afternoon’s high tides. Both downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg saw a storm surge of around five feet. In St. Petersburg, the water level was the second highest on record, trailing only Hurricane Elena in 1985, data indicated.
Charter fishing captain Chase Norwood weathered Idalia at his family’s home on high ground overlooking their marina on the Steinhatchee River. His house and surrounding rental cabins were spared, but the rising river inundated some surrounding restaurants and other businesses as well as homes along the water. Several sailboats anchored in the river were hurled into a key bridge connecting Steinhatchee to neighboring Dixie County.
“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was still pretty bad,” Norwood said.
The National Hurricane Center warned Florida residents to prepare for long power outages and said some locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months. Parts of eastern Georgia and southeastern South Carolina also were likely to experience damaging winds that could put them in the dark. As of 6 p.m., according to the website poweroutage.us, nearly 220,000 people in Florida and more than 230,000 in Georgia were without power.
Public utility crews were already trying to clear debris from downed trees, as state engineers began inspecting more than 1,000 bridges in the worst hit Florida counties. Tourists in the Tampa area started venturing out to bars and restaurants had closed as the storm advanced but were already reopening, even with surrounding streets still flooded.
The paper mill town of Perry, with a population of 7,000, was not so lucky. Though it sits more than a dozen miles inland, Idalia’s winds had hurled massive pine and oak trees into the roofs of homes and businesses, downed power lines and ruptured water pipes. Few residents had evacuated, and scary storm stories abounded, tales of ripped holes in ceilings and crushed cars.
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The power was out, and so was water in some places. Yet with skies clearing, chain saws buzzed as residents and work crews started to remove debris. Hotels were packed with coastal evacuees.
“Not everybody has money for motels,” said Amanda Manning, 42, a housekeeper who opted to stay in her rental home after a tree fell on the roof. Beyond the expense, she stayed in place because her daughter has asthma. The 16-year-old needs to stay cool, which was nearly impossible now without air conditioning or fans in the cinder block ranch house.
“It’s a waiting process,” Manning said as she stood in a yard now strewn with tree limbs and shingles.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) visited Perry for a late-afternoon news conference about the damage and cleanup statewide. He noted that there are not indicators of a high death toll from the storm. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, he said, officials in southwest Florida’s Lee County received frantic 911 calls from people who were drowning in their homes. At least 144 people lost their lives. “We have not seen that in the same way on this storm,” DeSantis said.
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Authorities were on guard given the flooding that was still expected — driven by higher-than-usual tides thanks to a rare blue supermoon set to rise a few hours later. Nevertheless, teens in some communities ignored the widespread storm surge warnings to film TikToks and other videos in floodwaters.
President Biden called DeSantis and the governors of surrounding states to show support, and directed federal agencies to position personnel and resources to aid response and recovery efforts in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, the White House said.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was set to travel to Florida and join DeSantis on Thursday to view the damage firsthand, her office said. Criswell told reporters that she will report “back to the president exactly what I see, what we think the needs might be and where the federal family can continue to assist.”
The hurricane disrupted travel plans across the South in advance of the coming Labor Day holiday weekend, with airlines canceling about 900 flights as Idalia closed in. Tampa International Airport reopened for flight arrivals only Wednesday afternoon and expected to fully reopen by early Thursday. Both Gainesville Regional Airport and Tallahassee International Airport reopened, while Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia canceled flights in the afternoon for the rest of the day. Ports in Tallahassee and Manatee were undergoing damage assessments and will reopen once clear.
Idalia came ashore in a low-population area of Florida — the five coastal counties along its path have a combined population of about 130,000 — which may keep fatalities to a lower number than Category 3 storms of past, authorities said. Hurricane Ian, by contrast, last year hit the booming Southwest Florida coast, where the city of Fort Myers alone is home to about 92,000 people.
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“We’re just waiting for the water to leave,” said Norwood, 23, as he surveyed the scene along his stretch of the Steinhatchee River. “We probably won’t do much work today. Tomorrow, we’ll probably start cleaning up.”
Share this articleShareThe scene was similar in Keaton Beach, not far from where Idalia officially made landfall. Mandy Adams, 42, a Floridian who works in logistics, had left her elevated beachfront home with her husband and two dogs and braced herself to face major destruction. Instead, she found a mud-coated patio.
“Keaton Beach took knuckles to the face and brushed it off,” she said while drinking a Modelo beer on her deck shortly after returning Wednesday. “I have never been so humbled in my whole life. It’s just a relief.”
On Cedar Key, an island in Florida’s Big Bend, a band of nearly 100 residents had been the focus of national media attention after they vowed to weather the storm, despite pleas from public safety officials to evacuate as Idalia appeared to be headed directly their way.
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Those who did leave won’t be allowed to return to their homes until Thursday, though reports from the individuals sheltering in place were encouraging, said Phil Prescott, a deacon of the local Episcopal church and chaplain of Cedar Key’s fire and police departments. No deaths or injuries were reported.
“I can’t use the word relief, because there is so much damage. But there is the sense that it could have been worse,” Prescott said. “The whole island could have been destroyed.”
Storm surge that may have reached nearly nine feet in some parts of the town severely damaged several buildings. “There are businesses that might not open again,” he said, “and I know there will be people that will be displaced from their homes for a good period of time. So there are those grim realities.”
Florida’s Big Bend area is particularly vulnerable to storm surge because of the adjacent gently sloping sea floor, which makes it easy for water to pile up along the coast and penetrate miles inland.
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Nature — birdwatching, fishing, hiking — is a major economic driver in the region. The area is often referred to as “the Nature Coast,” with multiple state and national wildlife areas, including the 83,000-acre St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge on Apalachee Bay, south of Tallahassee. The refuge is the winter home of endangered whopping cranes and an important stopover for monarch butterflies.
After the storm moved through, officers from Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission launched rescue operations by boat for injured wildlife.
Tampa’s glitzy Bayshore Boulevard — home to million-dollar homes — attracted attention after being inundated by saltwater early Wednesday as the storm rolled through and little fish were pushed onto the pavement. Residents flocked outside to check it out.
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Below a sky of gray clouds, the bay lapped at the concrete balustrades, sending spurts periodically onto the sidewalk. People walked their dogs and pushed their strollers right through the puddles.
Jennifer Kranz, 40, watched as her 9-year-old son and his friends played around the water pooling in a closed-off section of the street. They’d gotten lucky, she acknowledged. Idalia hadn’t scored a direct hit on her city. She planned to stick around and see — from a safe distance — how much of the bay would crash through the sea wall.
“The water is kind of yucky, huh?” she said as her boy ran over in his bright blue Crocs.
Across town, Meggie Castro, 34, watched as the water flooding her street crept up her driveway.
“It’s knocking at our front door,” the property manager said.
A fourth-generation Tampa native, she was used to storms — which was why Castro opted not to evacuate when the city urged people in her zone to seek higher ground. She did park her car in a safer spot, just in case she needed to escape when the supercharged high tide struck later in the day.
But for a moment, she chose not to stress and instead observe the wildlife. “All the birds at my feeder are stocking up,” she said.
Gowen reported from Lawrence, Kan. Jason Samenow, Ian Duncan, Ian Livingston, Kasha Patel and Mariana Alfaro in Washington and Annabelle Timsit in London contributed to this report.
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