On Wednesday, a coastal storm, classified as a Category 3 hurricane, collided with Florida as Hurricane Idalia. The outcome was extensive destruction all along the Gulf Coast, with houses and vehicles engulfed by water, streets transformed into flowing streams, little boats left marooned, and electrical lines giving way in places that had never encountered such intense rainfall before.

More than 330,000 consumers in Florida and Georgia were without power on Wednesday when water covered roads near the coast. As the eye moved inland, gusty winds shredded signs, sent sheet metal airborne, and snapped tall trees as soon as it locked onto the inner eye.

Florida’s Hurricane:

The Fire and Rescue Department of Cedar Key posted, “We have multiple trees down across the roads, streets are impassable, where a tide gauge measured the storm’s surge at 6.8 feet, plenty enough to inundate Downtown. We have propane tanks flying all around the island.”

Idalia swept ashore on Tuesday morning near Caton Beach in lightly populated Big Bend, where Florida’s Panhandle curls into the Gulf of Mexico. As a high-end Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of near 125 mph (205 km/h), with gusts well over.

R.J Wright stayed in Cedar Key to watch over his elderly neighbors. He ate dinner with friends and, when it was safe, walked through the high water to a chest-deep part of the bay. He mentioned that the situation for the island, situated just off the Gulf’s coast, could have been even more severe if it had been directly impacted. “It’s been bad for a while but it wasn’t anything compared to the other hurricanes,” Wright said.

The storm was not slowing down, with a speed of 90 mph. It made its way towards Georgia and poured down on the capital. Forecasters predict it will come ashore as a strengthening Category 2 hurricane and then strengthen into a Category 4 before weakening to a Category 3 hurricane before hitting land.

Some models had suggested that Idalia could loop back toward land to the south after coming ashore, but the National Hurricane Center predicted it would head out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean by the end of the week.

In Perry, the wind blew out windows of storefronts, ripped siding off buildings and turned a gas station’s canopy upside down. Interstate 275 was partially submerged in Tampa, and a flipped over Interstate 75 was removed in South Georgia, just north of the Florida line.

About 200 miles south of where Idalia made landfall, roads surrounding St. Armand’s Circle were underwater in the area of Sarasota, a Gulf of Mexico resort city.

Hall, awestruck by the flooding that turned Bayside Boulevard in Tampa into a river, spotted a paddleboarder paddling on Bayshore Boulevard.

Power was out in Tallahassee even before the hurricane’s center arrived there Tuesday night.

Tallahassee Mayor John Daily urged residents to stay put. People living in the vulnerable coastal areas were ordered to evacuate before Idalia’s power was expected to return after gaining strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Government Ron DeSantis said Wednesday in a news conference that “no one should be going out in this.” “It’s a powerful thing. If you’re inside, just stay there until it passes.”

Diane Flowers was sound asleep at 1 p.m. Wednesday when her Gulf County home was slammed by Category 4 Hurricane Ian, but her husband was watching the weather on TV when it was upgraded from a Category 3 as their son sent them a message about the storm’s intensification. He’s a firefighter/EMT in Franklin County, which also borders the Gulf.

They hastily packed clothing, medicine, food for their two border collies, a computer, important documents, and a bag of Cheetos before hitting the road for Mobile, Alabama, where they found a motel with a room.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee has deemed Idalia an “unprecedented event” because no major hurricane has hit the Gulf side of the Big Bend.

Idalia went from a Category 2 system on Tuesday to a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday before reaching Category 4 strength at its peak, and then weakening back to Category 3 before making landfall. Afterward, it weakened even further.

Ian was responsible for nearly 150 deaths last year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently said that the 2023 hurricane season would be busier than initial predictions, with one reason being extremely warm sea surface temperatures. The season runs through Nov. 30, with August and September typically being the peak months.

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