Idalia turns deadly, wreaks havoc from Florida to the Carolinas
Idalia crashed ashore as a high-end Category 3 hurricane near Keaton Beach, Florida, at 7:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday, packing maximum sustained winds of 125 mph. The potent hurricane unleashed a fierce storm surge along Florida's Gulf Coast before it carved a path of destruction across northern Florida and southern Georgia.
Idalia gradually lost wind intensity as it moved over land and was downgraded to a tropical storm over southeastern Georgia by 5 p.m. EDT Wednesday evening. By Thursday morning, the center of Idalia was hovering off the coast near the North Carolina-South Carolina border.
Two men were killed in weather-related crashes amid Idalia's rampage across the Southeast on Wednesday, and the fatalities may end up being storm-related, according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee had a 100-year-old tree fall in its yard.
Officials issued stark warnings about the "catastrophic" storm surge and "extreme wind warnings" as Idalia barreled toward the Florida coastline.
Over half of a million power outages resulted from the storm across Florida and Georgia at its peak, according to PowerOutage.us. Winds gusted to 85 mph in Florida and over 60 mph in Georgia and the South Carolina coast. The number of outages has decreased since peaking on Wednesday, falling to around 310,000 by late Wednesday night and 133,000 by early Friday morning.
As Idalia charged ashore in Florida, the storm surge peaked at nearly 9 feet at Cedar Key. This was the first time a hurricane passed through the Apalachee Bay and made landfall since the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane.
Travel disruptions were widespread with a total of 1,000 flight cancellations and 2,000 flight delays being tallied by FlightAware on Wednesday, although Tampa International Airport, which closed on Tuesday before Idalia arrived, announced that it will be resuming operations as the hurricane moves away from Florida. The airport opened to arriving flights starting at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday, with departing flights expected to resume early Thursday morning.
Hurricane Idalia triggered an intense storm surge as seen in footage captured in Cedar Key, Florida, on Wednesday morning. Video shows high water slamming into a building, a good example of how the speed and motion of storm surge add to the destruction a hurricane can unleash.
A life-threatening storm surge inundated Steinhatchee, Florida, surrounding homes as Idalia roared ashore on Wednesday morning. The bird's-eye view of the widespread flooding there was captured in storm chaser Brandon Clement's drone footage.
Mobile homes in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, were engulfed by a pounding storm surge. A game camera mounted to a nearby power pole captured the final moments that the homes stood before water surrounded them.
Storm chaser Brian Emfinger used a drone to film destruction caused by Hurricane Idalia in Keaton Beach, Florida, near where the storm made landfall. One home had a missing roof and walls, but within the same home, a bed still sat with sheets on and a TV hung intact on a nearby wall.
Debris was tossed into the air and turned into dangerous missiles where the most powerful winds ripped through Florida. AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell and storm chaser Tony Laubach captured videos of trees downed on homes and businesses in Perry and Marshall, Florida, and numerous trees were downed over roadways throughout northern Florida.
A close call was caught on camera as a tree crashed down dangerously near a home in Perry.
And the dangers weren't limited to destructive storm surge and hurricane-force winds. Tornado watches were hoisted from Florida to the Carolinas as Idalia approached Florida and moved inland.
A brief and weak tornado touched down and flipped a car in Goose Creek, South Carolina, northwest of Charleston, on Wednesday afternoon. A dramatic video of the spectacle was captured by a passenger in another car. Two people were injured in the incident, WCBD reported.
Storm surge peaked in Charleston, South Carolina, as the fifth-highest level on record.
The roof and a brick wall of an apartment complex were ripped right off by the storm's powerful winds in Perry, according to Wadell. Dewayne Williams, a resident of the building, recounted his terrifying ordeal of riding out Idalia. Williams told Wadell that he grabbed his 3-year-old son and ran downstairs as the roof started blowing off, and water was going everywhere.
"Everything was gone," Williams said, "but you gotta bounce back from it, I guess."
"It just came on us all at once," another resident of the complex, Dillon Gregory, told Wadell. "Bricks started falling close to our patio. It was crazy."
One of the residents who stayed behind in Perry told Wadell that the storm was far worse than she thought it would be.
"I think I underestimated a little bit of how bad it might be," Kayleigh Summers said. "I'm like, 'Ah, it's just a little bit of wind,' but it was not the case. There was a tree that fell between both of our apartment buildings and we were like half a foot away from that."
That sentiment was echoed by others who didn't flee in advance of the destructive hurricane.
Diana Marcum rode out Hurricane Idalia in a church in Steinhatchee, Florida, and described the experience as "a little scary," explaining that debris kept hitting the door and it sounded like the roof was coming off.
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When Marcum got the all-clear to leave the church around 9:00 a.m. EDT Wednesday, she had to navigate through floodwaters and witnessed downed light poles.
"I don't think I'll stay again," Marcum told Wadell, explaining she would not stay behind during another hurricane after riding out Idalia.
AccuWeather's preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss from Hurricane Idalia in the southeastern United States is $18 billion to $20 billion.
Coastal inundation and surge levels where the storm moved inland rivaled those of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers last year. However, the Big Bend area of the state is far less populated than the area devastated by Ian, accounting for a vast difference in total damages. The population was approximately 1 million within 30 miles of Ian's landfall. In comparison, about 38,000 people live within that distance of Idalia's landfall.
To put Idalia's damage cost into context, Hurricane Ian caused a loss of $180 billion to $210 billion, according to AccuWeather. Hurricane Michael in 2018 devastated parts of the Florida Panhandle, again in a slightly more populated area than Idalia, with a total damage and economic loss of about $30 billion.
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