TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday morning said the state had requested a federal disaster declaration for 25 counties that were under a hurricane warning while Idalia pressed into the Big Bend as a major storm the day prior.
Speaking at the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee, DeSantis was joined by Kevin Guhthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, who clarified the request was for an expedited major assistance declaration with talks of exact reimbursement figures to come later.
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“Our request at this time was for an expedited major assistance declaration, and then — once we get that — then we will go back into writing letters about requesting additional assistance,” Guthrie said.
With the exception of a traffic fatality in Alachua County, no deaths in Florida had been attributed to Idalia as of Thursday, according to Guthrie and DeSantis. They, along with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and others, went on to tour Cedar Key, Horseshoe Beach and Steinhatchee to get an assessment of the damage.
“I’ve seen a lot of really heartbreaking damage. I think when people lose a church, when they lose their home, when they lose a business, you know, you can see — I mean, this was really the day after the impact — a lot of these folks in, like, Horseshoe Beach, they came this morning to see and so it was all very raw when you have your whole life’s work into say, like, a business, and ends up under five feet of water, and that’s a lot of work that you’ve got to do going forward,” DeSantis said at a follow-up news conference Thursday afternoon in Steinhatchee.
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According to DeSantis and Guthrie, FDEM has so far completed at least 275 of more than 1,000 missions related to Idalia, such as aiding in power restoration and the clearing of debris from roads and bridges.
“Today, there are approximately 146,000 power outages reported across the state, but power is being restored quickly. Thus far, 420,000 accounts that lost power during the storm have been restored and the bulk of the outages at this point are in that Big Bend region — a lot of the rural counties that bore the brunt of the storm — and those are counties that will have co-ops and they are working to accept the mutual aid from the linemen that we have. All the linemen that were here, the tens of thousands, they are here still, they have not been released and they’re going to be working on particularly that area to get people back,” DeSantis said. “There’s parts of it that are 100% out, like in Taylor County, and so that is priority No. 1, to start getting those reconnected.”
Guthrie requested that those now working to remove debris on their own take care to separate the waste into different piles, adding that the piles should be kept out of the road to make room for civilian travel and further recovery efforts and that pictures should be taken of all damage beforehand.
“Make sure you separate your interior debris removal, these are your sofas, your couches, bedding, things of that nature, put it in a pile. Put your ‘muck and gut’ (...) this is the mud that came in your home, this is the wet sheet rock, the wet carpet, the wet materials; all of those things that are wet that you’re taking out of your home, you’re cutting out of your home, you have a contractor cutting it out of your home, maybe you have a volunteer organization cutting that out of your home, we’re gonna want that in a separate pile. We want to make sure that all of your vegetation is in a pile. We want to separate white goods. White goods are your appliances, make sure those are in a separate pile. And then the last pile that we talked about is your clean-and-sanitize household hazardous waste. If you’ve got cleaning materials or something like that, that have become damaged, this includes paint cans, anything that has some type of hazardous situation to it, we’re going to want that in a separate pile,” Guthrie said, adding further information could be found on FDEM’s website.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he had spoken with the governors of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, directing Criswell to spend Thursday accompanying DeSantis to assess hurricane damage.
The president on Thursday would go on to approve a federal disaster declaration in seven Florida counties: Citrus, Hamilton, Levy, Taylor, Dixie, Lafayette and Suwannee.
Read further into the disaster declaration at disasterassistance.gov.
Watch the governor’s morning news conference again in the video player below:
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