Recovery Underway After Hurricane Idalia Pummels Florida

Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning at 9am near Keaton Beach in the Big Bend region of Florida as a Category 3 Hurricane with sustained winds of up to 110 mph.

Governor Ron DeSantis announced there have been no confirmed fatalities as of this morning.

Over 500,000 Floridians were left without power, but according to Governor DeSantis, 262,000 have been restored.

“262,000 accounts that had lost power have been restored," said DeSantis at a Press Conference in Tallahassee. “Utility workers are actively working to restore power in all affected areas.”

DeSantis announced that the Tampa and Tallahassee airports will be fully reopened by tomorrow morning and the Gainesville airport will be reopened tonight.

"Right now Tampa airport is going to reopen for incoming flights at 4pm. By 3am tomorrow it will be fully reopened. Gainesville airport will reopen tonight and Tallahassee airport will reopen first thing in the morning," said DeSantis. "The ports in Tampa and Manatee are currently undergoing assessments and when those assessments are concluded they will be able to resume operations assuming all is well which we anticipate it will be."

DeSantis received praise from FEMA Director Deanne Criswell on CNN this morning.

"I gotta tell you, the amount of mutual aid the State of Florida brought in to support power restoration is significant," said Criswell. "What we saw during Hurricane Ian is that they were able to restore the power rather quickly, and I expect the same to happen here"

Idalia pummeled Perry County and Cedar Key, leaving communities devastated.

Trees were knocked over by Idalia's strong winds.

This is a developing story. DeSantis is set to have a Press Conference in Perry at 345pm today.