Dramatic timelapse shows Idalia storm surge barrel through Hudson, Florida
Hurricane Idalia has made landfall in Florida, hitting the Big Bend region as a “life-threatening” Category 3 storm before downgrading to a Category 2 as it heads across land toward Georgia.
The National Hurricane Center announced at 7.45am that the “extremely dangerous Category 3” storm had made landfall, bringing maximum sustained winds of 125 mph and catastrophic storm surge to the Sunshine State.
In an early morning press conference, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had warned: “Don’t mess with this storm. Don’t do anything that will put yourself in jeopardy.” The briefing itself was hit with a brief power outage as the storm had already plunged thousands of homes into darkness.
Idalia has already forced mass evacuations in low-lying areas and the state activated 55,000 national guardsmen and 25,000 electric linemen ahead of the hurricane’s arrival.
A terrifying forecast model has also shown that Hurricane Idalia could hit the state of Florida twice over the coming week. Global Forecasting System, a federal hurricane projection model, forecasts that Idalia will first make landfall on Florida’s Big Bend region on Wednesday morning before turning out over the Atlantic and doubling back toward South Florida in a much-weakened form.
