Idalia Hurricane Hits Florida: 500 Thousand Customers Lost Power, Floods Inundated Roads and Settlements

Floods caused by Hurricane Idalia in Tampa, Florida. (Wikimedia Commons/Andrew Heneen)

JAKARTA - Hurricane Idalia hit the Gulf Coast of Florida, United States on Wednesday local time, causing strong winds, heavy rain and crashing waves, before finally weakening and moving towards the Georgia area.

Hours after Idalia made landfall as a powerful Category 3 hurricane at Keaton Beach in Florida's Big Bend region, with winds of about 125 mph (201 kph), authorities were still trying to assess the full extent of damage in the hardest-hit areas.

Video footage and photos from the surrounding area showed sea water flooding roads and neighborhoods that were heavily flooded in the middle of the day. Meanwhile, there was a widespread power outage.

At an afternoon press conference, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said there had been no deaths from the storm.

Most residents in vulnerable and low-lying areas heeded evacuation orders and warnings to move to higher ground.

Governor DeSantis said that as many as 565,000 utility customers had lost electricity during and after the storm, as reported by Reuters, August 31.

DeSantis spoke in Perry, which along with the rest of Taylor County saw the worst damage from the storm. Power was out throughout the city, all businesses were closed and many houses were empty.

Meanwhile, Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue said state National Guard teams were conducting rescues in Hernando and Taylor counties.

By midday, a storm monitoring station at Steinhatchee, 20 miles (32 km) south of Keaton Beach, showed water levels at 8 feet (2.4 meters), well above flood stage of 6 feet (1.8 meters).

In Hillsborough County, a county of 1.5 million people south of the Big Bend region that includes Tampa, crews faced extensive damage and flooded roads, officials said at a news conference.

As a result of the storm, residents were seen cutting down fallen trees and tree branches that were strewn across yards and roads, making it difficult to drive through the city. Several houses and other buildings were destroyed.

"This is the worst storm I've ever seen here, I've never seen anything like this," Thomas Demps, 80, a Taylor County commissioner, said.

About 200 miles (322 km) to the south, at least 75 people were rescued from flooding in St. Louis. Petersburg, Florida, city officials said on social media, with video showing two emergency workers in a small boat crossing waterlogged streets amid heavy rain.

Emerging from the warm, open waters of the Gulf of Mexico as it moves toward Florida, Hurricane Idalia gained strength after passing through western Cuba on Monday as a tropical storm.

The storm generated destructive winds and heavy rains that are expected to cause flooding up to 16 feet (5 m) deep along Florida's Gulf Coast. About 12 hours after the storm arrived, the governor said no drowning victims had been found trapped in the storm surge.

By Wednesday afternoon, the center of Hurricane Idalia had left Florida and moved into Georgia. State officials said they expected the storm to sweep through Georgia at 8 p.m. local time.