Delaino’s house is half a block from the water, but it’s on a ridge that rises 20 feet above sea level, a vantage point that gave him confidence, even as the storm sped through. The cedar tree in his front yard lost a few branches, but other than some debris, there wasn’t much to clean up.
While many of his neighbors were heeding the evacuation order Tuesday afternoon, Delaino was out fishing.
“I got some redfin and some mullet,” he said. “We’ll cook them up for dinner tonight.”
As Idalia churned northeast toward Georgia and the Carolinas on Wednesday, bringing with it hurricane-force winds and more fears of fatal flooding, communities across Florida’s Big Bend region were beginning to assess the storm’s damage.
Idalia cut an unpredictable path of destruction, rending some homes from their foundations while sparing others.
But as the storm moved on from Florida, residents and officials here were hopeful that they had avoided the deadliest, worst-case scenarios, releasing a cautious, statewide exhale nearly one year after Hurricane Ian caused catastrophic damage and claimed roughly 150 lives.
“This is ten times better than what I expected to come back to,” said Joe Brenner, standing outside of his intact home in the tiny coastal town of Keaton Beach, where Idalia made landfall.
Residents like Brenner returned Wednesday to a stunning sight: Oceanfront homes nearly unscathed by the storm. Brenner’s, a purple three-story house elevated about 12 feet, was stripped of its siding but dry inside.
The town had been spared, with almost no flooding. Even the mailboxes lining the main road were upright.
“It could have been worse,” Brenner said.
At least two motorists died while driving on the region’s rain-sodden roads, authorities said. The storm’s toll may rise in the coming days, but state leaders said they haven’t yet seen the telltale indicators of a high death count.
During Hurricane Ian, for instance, southwest Florida’s Lee County was inundated with frantic 911 calls from people drowning in their homes, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a news briefing.
“Just the feeling of dread those phone calls represented, you knew there was going to be a lot of problems,” he said. “We have not seen that in the same way on this storm.”
Geography may be partially to thank, as Idalia made landfall in a sparsely populated swath of the state. Even so, it was the first storm of its magnitude to hit this part of the state in more than 100 years, DeSantis added.
“There’s going to be a lot that’s going to be required to be able to clean this up and to get everything back up and running again,” he said.
That is especially true in the paper mill town of Perry, the seat of coastal Taylor County, where some 7,000 people live. Massive pines and oaks littered the streets on Wednesday, some pulling down power lines and puncturing holes in the roofs of businesses and homes.
Electricity was still out in most of the area and residents, many of whom did not evacuate, were sorting through their soggy belongings, trying to figure out where they’d go next. Roy Johnson, whose roof had ripped open during the storm, was packing trash bags in front of his home.
The 73-year-old retired rest stop worker had spent the tumultuous night hunkered down in his bathtub, clutching his Bible — “praying and trembling,” he said.
“Things started booming and falling out of the trees,” he said. As he walked through his waterlogged kitchen, dodging strewn spaghetti and broken glass, Johnson said he regretted his decision to ride out the storm.
“I should have known better,” he said.
Less than 40 miles south, in the Gulf Coast community of Steinhatchee, floodwaters swamped homes, restaurants, and other businesses along the Steinhatchee River.
Fearing the worst, Fred “Trey” Mitchell evacuated his entire family — a first for the Florida natives. He even persuaded his father, 66-year-old Mitch Mitchell, to leave, enlisting several of his friends to pepper him with phone calls until he relented.
“He did leave, finally. I was so happy,” Trey Mitchell said.
And, according to a neighbor, he got out just in time.
“Mitch’s house is gone, flooded,” said Tom Willits, who runs a local seafood restaurant. “All the restaurants in town other than ours are flooded, too. It’s bad.”
Willits, who lives about 1½ miles from the coast, stayed to help friends stormproof their houses. But the water rose too high, even for Mitch Mitchell’s house, which was elevated over 10 feet. Webcam footage showed floodwater up to the roofs of some homes.
Don Timone, who lives in a mobile home in Steinhatchee, also stayed behind, confident that his dwelling stood on high enough ground. He lost power at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday and found himself praying that the metal signs whipping in the wind wouldn’t collide with his house.
“Does it get scary? Of course it does,” he said. “God didn’t — it’s not my time, apparently. I don’t know why he’s still got me here, but I’m here. … I’m lucky. I hope everyone else around here is lucky.”
In Dunedin, just north of Clearwater and across the bay from Tampa, residents like Jim McGinity were also counting themselves lucky. McGinity moved to the area in 2004, just in time to weather a run of four hurricanes. He was bracing for a big impact from Idalia, but the gauge at his house only registered about an inch of rain.
“Especially after last year” and the threat that became Hurricane Ian, he said, “this one could have done the same.”
Instead, he was wading through his neighborhood’s flooded roads with a pair of binoculars, looking for birds.
Along Tampa’s ritzy and now-flooded Bayshore Boulevard, the mood had also lightened considerably Wednesday, as residents shifted from bracing for disaster to celebrating another dodged bullet.
Lillian Ochoa, 23, brought her snorkel mask to the roadway.
“I’m just gonna place my head in the water,” she said, laughing.
Ochoa, a marketing account manager in Clearwater, was hoping to see gators, or maybe a stingray. But mostly, she was enjoying a welcome break from the stress of the past 24 hours.
“Maybe we’ll find a manatee,” she said.
Down the road, Michael O’Rourke, 63, watched water pool on the block facing his 1915 bungalow. His neighborhood was one of many across the state that flooded rapidly, but he felt confident residents would recover.
“They’ll be okay,” O’Rourke said.
Across the street, three girls — all apparently younger than 12 — waded into the waist-high water, laughing and filming videos on their phones.
“This is crazy!” one squealed.
Businesses across the region were shuttered on Wednesday, but some places exuded normalcy, even as rain continued to pour on and off. At the Old Northeast Tavern in a cobblestoned neighborhood of St. Petersburg, down the street from where a Mercedes sedan had been trapped in floodwater, beer was flowing and people were largely ignoring the Idalia updates on the television.
A sheriff on the screen was talking about statewide rescue efforts when Clay Houston, 33, reached for his cold Yuengling.
“I’m not leaving until it’s a Category 5,” said the sales representative who lives a block away. “And even then …”
Next to him, Carl Pearson, 71, sipped a Guinness and pointed out the bright side.
“We needed the rain,” the retiree said.
Back in Cedar Key, a sense that the community had escaped something potentially ruinous hung in the post-storm air.
Patrick Callen and Daniel Wal were among those who decided to stay on the island. They have only lived there for 2½ years, but their house is 100 years old. They have updated it with hurricane-tested windows and solar panels, which made them one of the only places with electricity after the storm has passed.
“I think the estimations were wrong about both the severity and storm surge,” Callen said. “It almost seemed sensationalistic.”
The two were buzzing around town in a golf cart, like many of the residents who stayed behind. They were picking up debris and helping neighbors clear driveways and sidewalks.
The damage they saw along the waterfront, where Idalia had thrashed bars, restaurants, and hotels, was sobering. But the town is resilient, they said.
“Cedar Key has survived so many storms,” Callen said. “It survived the Civil War. The town will rebuild.”
Cedar Key City Commissioner Sue Colson drove by in her golf cart and stopped to chat.
“This is sad,” Colson said after surveying the damaged businesses on the waterfront. “It could have been worse. But there’s a lot of cleaning up to do.”
Two deaths were reported as of midafternoon, both in Florida and involving car crashes during the storm.
Heavy rainfall and widespread flooding were seen from Fort Myers Beach northward and in communities in southern Georgia, with officials expecting more flooding after the afternoon’s high tides. Both downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg saw a storm surge of around five feet. In St. Petersburg, the water level was the second highest on record, trailing only Hurricane Elena in 1985, data indicated.
Charter fishing captain Chase Norwood weathered Idalia at his family’s home on high ground overlooking their marina on the Steinhatchee River. His house and surrounding rental cabins were spared, but the rising river inundated some surrounding restaurants and other businesses as well as homes along the water. Several sailboats anchored in the river were hurled into a key bridge connecting Steinhatchee to neighboring Dixie County.
“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was still pretty bad,” Norwood said.
The National Hurricane Center warned Florida residents to prepare for long power outages and said some locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months. Parts of eastern Georgia and southeastern South Carolina also were likely to experience damaging winds that could put them in the dark. As of 6 p.m., according to the website poweroutage.us, nearly 220,000 people in Florida and more than 230,000 in Georgia were without power.
Public utility crews were already trying to clear debris from downed trees, as state engineers began inspecting more than 1,000 bridges in the worst-hit Florida counties. Tourists in the Tampa area started venturing out to bars and restaurants that had closed as the storm advanced but were already reopening, even with surrounding streets still flooded.
The paper mill town of Perry, with a population of 7,000, was not so lucky. Though it sits more than a dozen miles inland, Idalia’s winds had hurled massive pine and oak trees into the roofs of homes and businesses, downed power lines, and ruptured water pipes. Few residents had evacuated, and scary storm stories abounded, tales of ripped holes in ceilings and crushed cars.
The power was out, and so was water in some places. Yet with the skies clearing, chainsaws buzzed as residents and work crews started to remove debris. Hotels were packed with coastal evacuees.
“Not everybody has money for motels,” said Amanda Manning, 42, a housekeeper who opted to stay in her rental home after a tree fell on the roof. Beyond the expense, she stayed in place because her daughter had asthma. The 16-year-old needs to stay cool, which is nearly impossible now without air conditioning or fans in the cinder block ranch house.
“It’s a waiting process,” Manning said as she stood in a yard now strewn with tree limbs and shingles.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) visited Perry for a late-afternoon news conference about the damage and cleanup statewide. He noted that there are no indicators of a high death toll from the storm. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, he said, officials in southwest Florida’s Lee County received frantic 911 calls from people who were drowning in their homes. At least 144 people lost their lives. “We have not seen that in the same way on this storm,” DeSantis said.
Authorities were on guard given the flooding that was still expected — driven by higher-than-usual tides thanks to a rare blue supermoon set to rise a few hours later. Nevertheless, teens in some communities ignored the widespread storm surge warnings to film TikToks and other videos in floodwaters.
President Biden called DeSantis and the governors of surrounding states to show support, and directed federal agencies to position personnel and resources to aid response and recovery efforts in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, the White House said.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was set to travel to Florida and join DeSantis on Thursday to view the damage firsthand, her office said. Criswell told reporters that she would report “back to the president exactly what I see, what we think the needs might be, and where the federal family can continue to assist.”
The hurricane disrupted travel plans across the South in advance of the coming Labor Day holiday weekend, with airlines canceling about 900 flights as Idalia closed in. Tampa International Airport reopened for flight arrivals only Wednesday afternoon and is expected to fully reopen by early Thursday. Both Gainesville Regional Airport and Tallahassee International Airport reopened, while Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia canceled flights in the afternoon for the rest of the day. Ports in Tallahassee and Manatee were undergoing damage assessments and will reopen once clear.
Idalia came ashore in a low-population area of Florida — the five coastal counties along its path have a combined population of about 130,000 — which may keep fatalities to a lower number than Category 3 storms of the past, authorities said. Hurricane Ian, by contrast, last year hit the booming Southwest Florida coast, where the city of Fort Myers alone is home to about 92,000 people.
“We’re just waiting for the water to leave,” said Norwood, 23, as he surveyed the scene along his stretch of the Steinhatchee River. “We probably won’t do much work today. Tomorrow, we’ll probably start cleaning up.”
The scene was similar in Keaton Beach, not far from where Idalia officially made landfall. Mandy Adams, 42, a Floridian who works in logistics, had left her elevated beachfront home with her husband and two dogs and braced herself to face major destruction. Instead, she found a mud-coated patio.
“Keaton Beach took knuckles to the face and brushed it off,” she said while drinking a Modelo beer on her deck shortly after returning Wednesday. “I have never been so humbled in my whole life. It’s just a relief.”
On Cedar Key, an island in Florida’s Big Bend, a band of nearly 100 residents had been the focus of national media attention after they vowed to weather the storm, despite pleas from public safety officials to evacuate as Idalia appeared to be headed directly their way.
Those who did leave won’t be allowed to return to their homes until Thursday, though reports from the individuals sheltering in place were encouraging, said Phil Prescott, a deacon of the local Episcopal church and chaplain of Cedar Key’s fire and police departments. No deaths or injuries were reported.
“I can’t use the word relief, because there is so much damage. But there is the sense that it could have been worse,” Prescott said. “The whole island could have been destroyed.”
Storm surge that may have reached nearly nine feet in some parts of the town severely damaged several buildings. “There are businesses that might not open again,” he said, “and I know there will be people that will be displaced from their homes for a good period of time. So there are those grim realities.”
Florida’s Big Bend area is particularly vulnerable to storm surge because of the adjacent gently sloping sea floor, which makes it easy for water to pile up along the coast and penetrate miles inland.
Nature — birdwatching, fishing, hiking — is a major economic driver in the region. The area is often referred to as “the Nature Coast,” with multiple state and national wildlife areas, including the 83,000-acre St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge on Apalachee Bay, south of Tallahassee. The refuge is the winter home of endangered whopping cranes and an important stopover for monarch butterflies.
After the storm moved through, officers from Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission launched rescue operations by boat for injured wildlife.
Tampa’s glitzy Bayshore Boulevard — home to million-dollar homes — attracted attention after being inundated by saltwater early Wednesday as the storm rolled through and little fish were pushed onto the pavement. Residents flocked outside to check it out.
Below a sky of gray clouds, the bay lapped at the concrete balustrades, sending spurts periodically onto the sidewalk. People walked their dogs and pushed their strollers right through the puddles.
Jennifer Kranz, 40, watched as her 9-year-old son and his friends played around the water pooling in a closed-off section of the street. They’d gotten lucky, she acknowledged. Idalia hadn’t scored a direct hit on her city. She planned to stick around and see — from a safe distance — how much of the bay would crash through the sea wall.
“The water is kind of yucky, huh?” she said as her boy ran over in his bright blue Crocs.
Across town, Meggie Castro, 34, watched as the water flooding her street crept up her driveway.
“It’s knocking at our front door,” the property manager said.
A fourth-generation Tampa native, she was used to storms — which was why Castro opted not to evacuate when the city urged people in her zone to seek higher ground. She parked her car in a safer spot, just in case she needed to escape when the supercharged high tide struck later in the day.
But for a moment, she chose not to stress and instead observe the wildlife. “All the birds at my feeder are stocking up,” she said.
⚠️ INSANE Footage from Goose Creek South Carolina of car getting tossed by a tornado spawned by Hurricane Idalia‼️#HurricaneIdalia #Idalia pic.twitter.com/fRHRobXdsK
— Cinema Shogun (@CinemaShogun) August 31, 2023
WATCH: Shocking moment car goes flying as Idalia passes through South Carolina. pic.twitter.com/ik8XFkL4RV
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 31, 2023
'YOU LOOT, WE SHOOT': @RonDeSantis doesn't hold back in warning to looters after Idalia slams Florida https://t.co/PQEwKAWdAF pic.twitter.com/V1DoAGtrCf
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 31, 2023
@cbsnews Prior to making landfall in #Florida, Hurricane Idalia flooded part of a major state highway in Tampa that connects the city to St. Petersburg. #stpetersburg #tampa #hurricaneidalia #weather ♬ original sound - cbsnews
@jeff.emt #hurricane #hurricaneidalia #florida #floridapanhandle #gasstation #hurricanedamage #hurricsneseaon2023 #stormwatcher #tropicalstorm ♬ original sound - 🚨Jeff 🚒Theme Park EMT 🚑🚨