USA – Florida began this Thursday to assess the damage caused by the devastating floods as a result of the passage of Hurricane Idalia, which was downgraded to a storm and is now advancing along the southeastern coast of the United States.
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Idalia made landfall in Florida on Wednesday, August 30, after beginning its trajectory on Monday in Cuba and now threatens the state of Georgia with torrential rains and more flooding in coastal areas, where residents suffer power outages.
In Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, more than 310,000 homes were without electricity on Thursday morning, according to the specialized portal PowerOutage.us.
Authorities have not reported casualties, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, warned that “this could change” given the magnitude of the storm.
State officials said rescue teams are operational, but admitted it may take time to reach areas blocked by falling trees or flooding.
Idalia broke into Florida, near Keaton Beach, as a category 3 hurricane on a scale of 5, with winds of up to 215 km/h at 07:45 on Wednesday, according to the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC, for its acronym in Spanish). English).
In some areas of the coast, the waters rose up to five meters, according to the NHC.
Later, Idalia lost strength, but generated winds near 100 km/h in Georgia and South Carolina.
“There is still a lot of flooding” in Charleston, South Carolina, the city’s emergency management director, Ben Almquist, told CNN on Wednesday night.
“terrifying”
The authorities hope that the situation will improve as of the morning of this Thursday, August 31.
“Everything should get better once (Wednesday) night passes,” Ron Morales, a National Service meteorologist in Charleston, projected in statements to local media.
According to projections, the storm will finish its journey in the Atlantic this Thursday.
Authorities called thousands of people in Florida to evacuate, although some residents refused to leave their homes.
In Perry, an affected city, dozens of trees were uprooted by the wind.
A pine tree fell on the home of 76-year-old John Kallschmidt, who said it was a “terrifying” experience.
“It was worse than we expected,” he told AFP. “But that’s the way it is, that’s life in Florida.”
The footprint of climate change
In Steinhatchee, a small town of about 1,000 people located on the coast 30 km south of Keaton Beach, the almost deserted main street was completely inundated and looked like an extension of a neighboring river.
“Some trees fell in front of my house, but otherwise the house was saved. Everything is fine,” Patrick Boland, a 73-year-old man who locked himself in his home, told AFP.
In the Tampa Bay area, where there are more than three million residents, the streets were flooded and some residents had to use boats to get around.
More than 1,000 rescuers were deployed by federal authorities, after the White House called for enhanced surveillance.
“Idalia is the most powerful storm to make landfall in this part of Florida in more than 100 years,” said Deanne Criswell, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Scientists warn that storms will become increasingly powerful as temperatures rise due to climate change.
US President Joe Biden told reporters that “no one can deny the impact of the climate crisis.”
“Just look around us,” he said of the “historic floods” or the recent devastating fires in Hawaii and Canada.
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