(CMR) Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s west coast as a Category three hurricane early Wednesday, causing widespread flooding in several areas.
The storm has flooded streets, closed airports, canceled flights, along with causing widespread power outages. Storm surge damage may stretch about 200 miles along Florida’s west coast, past the Tampa Bay area, and the state’s Big Bend area could get 12-16 feet of storm surge.
Idalia is now a Category 1 hurricane after briefly reaching Category 4 overnight.
The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee said “locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months” because of wind damage.
As Idalia hammers Florida and heads northeast, another storm, Hurricane Franklin, is churning in the western Atlantic. As of 11 a.m., Franklin’s outer bands were passing near Bermuda with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, moving northeast at 13 mph.
Several airlines canceled flights in and out of Bermuda as a result of the storm.
Franklin, the second hurricane of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, is creating “potentially deadly surf and rip currents along the U.S. East Coast,” the National Weather Service said.
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