CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. (WSVN) — Hurricane Idalia, the first major hurricane to hit Florida’s Big Bend in over 100 years, left a deadly path of destruction after downing trees and flooding homes as the sea surged onto shore.
The Category 3 storm slammed into Florida on Wednesday, wreaking havoc on communities along the coast and cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the state.
In Crystal River, businesses and homes were left damaged on Thursday. As residents pick up the pieces of their community, officials said the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Idalia may be unrecognizable.
“I was quite the storm. It was a bad one,” said one resident.
“These are all little old-school Florida villas and they were just picked up and carried into the gulf,” said Michael Bobbit, a man who chose to stay behind to help in rescue missions.
As the storm continued to thrash communities up the coast into Georgia and the Carolinas overnight into Thursday morning, some residents are waking up to find their communities forever changed. The damage likely changed some of those communities forever.
“There are some communities that may never look the same and others will get rebuilt that will look slightly different. This is a life-changing event for some of these counties,” said State Rep. Jared Moskowitz.
While the storm has been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moves out to sea, residents are left shaken and heartbroken.
“It hurt because I raised my kids up in this trailer,” said another resident.
The storm hugged Georgia and South Carolina’s coast while it remained a Catergory 2 hurricane and moved across the North Carolina as a strong tropical storm on Wednesday.
Others, like Dawn Perez from Perry, Florida expressed sadness and concern for their communities.
“I was really sad, you know, I mean, and I’m trying not to get emotional but, you know, this is a beautiful town. The people are wonderful and I hate seeing my people go through something like this,” she said.
As the storm moved off Florida’s shores, the extent of the damage was assessed and the journey to recovery began. While authorities work to recover roads, a financial assessment is set to take place in order to determine the damages in the affected areas.