Cleanup begins after Idalia’s wrath
Residents in Fla., Ga. comb through debris of devastated homes
HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. — Florida and Georgia residents living along Hurricane Idalia’s path of destruction on Thursday picked through piles of rubble where homes once stood, threw tarps over rippedapart roofs and gingerly navigated streets left under water or clogged with fallen trees and dangerous electric wires.
“My plan today is to go around and find anything that’s in the debris that is salvageable and clean out my storage shed,” said Aimee Firestine of Cedar Key, an island located in the remote Big Bend area where Idalia roared ashore with 125 mph winds Wednesday.
Firestine rode out Idalia about 40 minutes inland. When she drove back onto the island hours after the storm passed, her heart sank. The gas station was gone. Trees were toppled. Power lines were on the ground. An entire building belonging to the 12-unit Faraway Inn her family owns had been wiped away. Another building lost a wall.
“It was a little heart-wrenching and depressing,” Firestine said.
At Horseshoe Beach in central Big Bend, James Nobles returned to find his home had survived the storm, though many of his neighbors weren’t as lucky.
“The town, I mean, it’s devastated,” Nobles said. “It’s probably 50 or 60 homes here, totally destroyed. I’m a lucky one, a few limbs on my house. But we’re going to build back. We’re going to be strong.”
Florida officials said there was one hurricane-related death in the Gainesville area but didn’t release any details. The state’s highway patrol reported earlier that two people were killed in separate weather-related crashes just hours before Idalia made landfall.
A man in Valdosta, Georgia, died when a tree fell on him as he tried to clear another tree out of the road, Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk said.
As many as a half-million customers were without power at one point in Florida and Georgia as the storm ripped down utility poles.
The storm had 90 mph winds when it made a direct hit on Valdosta on Wednesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said.
“We’re fortunate this storm was a narrow one, and it was fast moving and didn’t sit on us,” Kemp said Thursday in Atlanta. “But if you were in the path, it was devastating. And we’re responding that way.”
Desmond Roberson of Valdosta was shocked when he took a drive through the city of 55,000 with a friend to check out the damage. On one street, he said, a tree had fallen on nearly every house. Roads remained blocked by tree trunks and downed power lines and traffic lights were still blacked out at major intersections.
“It’s a maze . ... I had to turn around three times, just because roads were blocked off,” Roberson said.
Rescue and repair efforts were in full force Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend area, where Idalia shredded homes, ripped off roofs, snapped tall trees, and turned streets into rivers.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis toured the area with his wife, Casey, and federal emergency officials.
“I’ve seen a lot of really heartbreaking damage,” he said, noting a church that had been swamped by more than 4 feet of water. “When you have your whole life’s work into, say, a business that ends up under 5 feet (of water) — that’s a lot of work that you’ve got to do going forward.”
Marina worker Kerry
Ford said he was glad so many people in Horseshoe Beach ultimately decided to evacuate. He said he had to convince several people.
“I have seen these storms and I told them, look, this is not one you want to stay for because I knew it was going to be catastrophic,” Ford said. “It wasn’t going to be much left. And if you stayed, your first thing, I ask them, can you all tread water for a couple of hours? Because that’s pretty much what it’s going to be.”
Despite the widespread destruction in the Big Bend, where Florida’s Panhandle curves into the peninsula, it provided only glancing blows to Tampa Bay and other more populated areas, DeSantis noted. In contrast,
Hurricane Ian last year hit the heavily populated Fort Myers area, leaving 149 dead in the state.
President Joe Biden spoke to DeSantis and promised whatever federal aid is available. Biden also announced that he will go to Florida on Saturday to see the damage himself.
The president used a news conference at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters to send a message to Congress, especially those lawmakers who are balking at his request for $12 billion in emergency funding to respond to natural disasters.
Before heading out into the Atlantic on Thursday, Idalia swung east, flooding many of South Carolina’s beaches and leaving some in the state and North Carolina without power.
In South Carolina, the storm coupled with already really high tides to send seawater flowing over sand dunes in nearly every beach town. In Charleston, Idalia’s surge topped part of the seawall that protects the downtown, sending ocean water into the streets.
Preliminary data showed the Wednesday evening high tide reached just over 9.2 feet, more than 3 feet above normal and the fifth-highest reading in Charleston Harbor since records were first kept in 1899.
In southeastern North Carolina, more than 9 inches of rain fell in Whiteville, flooding downtown buildings. The downpour swelled creeks and rivers, and forecasters warned that places downstream on the Pee Dee and Lumber rivers could flood, although it will be well below the historic crests that devastated entire towns after Hurricanes Florence and Matthew.