Some communities across Florida’s west coast battered by Idalia’s winds endured a life changing event, an official says, after the strongest hurricane in the Big Bend region delivered record water levels, damaged thousands of homes.
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Idalia, after making landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday morning, also battered parts of southeast Georgia and the Carolinas, flooding coastal areas and leaving hundreds of thousands of power outages.
A tropical storm as of 2 a.m. ET Thursday, Idalia was causing dangerous flash flooding in parts of North Carolina and threatened more of the same through the morning, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm wreaked havoc as it smashed into Florida’s Big Bend area the region between the panhandle and peninsula near Keaton Beach on Wednesday morning, ripping roofs off buildings and flooding homes as it pushed feet of seawater onshore along a wide swath of the state’s west coast.
Many of the areas that bore the brunt of the storm aren’t equipped to handle such a powerful hurricane, US Rep. Jared Moskowitz said Wednesday night.
“In those areas, a lot of them are fiscally constrained. They don’t necessarily have the resources,†Moskowitz, who represents a South Florida district and used to lead the state’s Division of Emergency Management, told CNN.
“There are some communities that may never look the same and others that will get rebuilt that will look slightly different,†Moskowitz said. “This is a life changing event for some of these counties.â€
Officials urged thousands to evacuate before storm surge caused several record-high water levels from Tampa Bay through the Big Bend. The storm also downed power lines and caused flooding in parts of Georgia and South Carolina, including Charleston, and North Carolina, where flash flooding was reported early Thursday in Wilmington.
In Charleston, the storm tore down trees and led officials to close flooded roads, police said. Water also breached dunes at South Carolina’s Edisto Beach, the National Weather Service said.
There was “one unconfirmed fatality†in Florida in the storm’s aftermath, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday.
Earlier, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Steve Gaskins said two men were killed in two separate crashes Wednesday morning during severe storm conditions from Idalia. Gaskins said both deaths were weather-related. It’s unclear whether DeSantis was referring to one of these crashes. CNN has reached out to the agencies for clarification.
Another death was reported in Georgia’s Lowndes County, where man died after a tree fell on him as he cut a tree on a highway, sheriff Ashley Paulk told CNN.
As of 2 a.m. ET Thursday, Tropical Storm Idalia’s center was about 20 miles southwest of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. The storm is forecast to move just offshore of North Carolina’s coast later Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. ■