Hurricane Idalia, a powerful Category 2 storm, has rapidly intensified and is threatening a potentially catastrophic collision with Florida’s west coast while officials plead with residents to evacuate.
The storm was packing 105 mph winds Tuesday night, and its outer bands have been lashing Florida for hours, already causing flooding in some coastal areas. It’s expected to continue strengthening into a major hurricane before it reaches Florida’s Big Bend coast, where it’s predicted to make landfall Wednesday morning, the National Hurricane Center said.
Parts of the state’s Gulf Coast should expect “life-threatening” storm surge – when the storm’s winds push the ocean onshore, the center said earlier.
“There is great potential for death and catastrophic devastation,” the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office warned on Tuesday, saying coastal residents were ordered to evacuate. “Storm surge on the coastal regions are projected as non-survivable.”
A tornado watch is also now in effect for more than 7 million people across central and western Florida, including Tampa, until 6 a.m. Wednesday. Short-lived and usually weak tornadoes are often associated with the outer bands of tropical systems that make landfall.
“That is storm surge that, if you’re there while that hits, it’s going to be very difficult to survive,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Tuesday evening news conference.
On the island city of Cedar Key, on the southern side of the Big Bend, Mayor Heath Davis urged residents under a mandatory evacuation order to leave immediately.
“This storm is worse than we’ve ever seen. My family has been here for many generations, we haven’t seen a storm this bad, ever,” he said Tuesday. All emergency services will stop Tuesday evening as winds pick up, the mayor said, adding he does not want to put employees’ lives in danger.
Cedar Key could be cut off by the high storm surge, National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said.
Parts of Levy County, where Cedar Key is, could see “powerful battering waves” and life-threatening flooding, and many buildings could be damaged or washed away, the National Weather Service said.
DeSantis stressed Tuesday that residents under evacuation orders should leave now, as weather conditions will only deteriorate.
“If you do choose to stay in one of the evacuation zones, first responders will not be able to get you until after the storm has passed,” he added. Nearly 600 urban search and rescue personnel were prepared to be deployed to help in those efforts, the governor said.
Storm surge was captured on video Tuesday by several residents across southwest Florida, including Fort Myers Beach, a community still reeling from the devastation it suffered last fall from Hurricane Ian – which leveled coastal Florida and left more than 100 dead. Florida resident Scott Martin shared a video on Facebook showing roads in Fort Myers Beach already flooded and the “storm hasn’t even hit,” he wrote.
The hurricane was roughly 195 miles southwest of Tampa at roughly 5 p.m. ET, the hurricane center said.
While the center of the hurricane isn’t expected to make landfall in the Tampa area, any wobble or shift in its track over the next 12 hours dramatically increases the region’s surge levels, already forecast to be dangerous.
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