Deadly hurricane sweeps across north Florida, destroying homes
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FLORIDA was hit by its first hurricane in more than a decade yesterday. Hermine tore across the northern part of the US state, killing one person and raising a storm surge that destroyed beachside buildings and toppled trees into homes.
As the hurricane pushed into Georgia, it knocked down many power lines in both states. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity.
Hermine was expected to move into the Carolinas and roll up the East Coast with the potential for drenching rain and devastating flooding through the Labor Day weekend. By midday on Friday, it had weakened from its peak wind speed of 130 kilometers per hour to a tropical storm.
A homeless man in Marion County, south of Gainesville, was killed when he was hit by a tree, Governor Rick Scott said.
Although damage was still being assessed, the governor said he knew of no other “major issues” besides the power outages and damaged roads.
At Dekle Beach, just south of Florida’s Big Bend, where the peninsula meets the Panhandle, storm surge damaged numerous homes and destroyed storage buildings and a 100-meter fishing pier. The area is about 100 kilometers southeast of St. Marks, where Hermine made landfall at 1:30am Eastern Standard Time.
Nancy Geohagen walked around collecting photos and other items for her neighbors that had been thrown from storage. “I know who this baseball bat belongs to,” she said plucking it from a pile of debris.
An unnamed spring storm that hit the beach in 1993 killed 10 people who refused to evacuate. This time, only three residents stayed behind. All escaped injury.
At nearby Keaton Beach, about two dozen people waited on a road just after sunrise yesterday, trying to get to their homes. Police blocked the road because of flooding.
Dustin Beach, 31, had rushed there from a hospital in Tallahassee where his wife had given birth on Thursday night to a girl to see if his home still stood. “When my wife got up this morning, she said, ‘Go home and check on the house. I need to know where we’re going after we leave the hospital,’” Beach said.
Cindy Simpson was waiting near her car, hoping her beach home and boats had survived. “It’s a home on stilts so I put everything upstairs. We have two boats in the boat house, and I hope they’re still there,” she said.
High winds knocked trees onto several houses in Tallahassee, injuring people inside.
Fire-rescue spokesman Mike Bellamy said an unknown number of people were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening. His agency responded to more than 300 calls overnight.
The governor estimated that 325,000 people in Florida had no power.
In Pasco County, north of Tampa, authorities said flooding forced 18 people from their homes in Green Key and Hudson Beach. Pasco County Fire Rescue and sheriff’s deputies used high-water vehicles to rescue people from rising water.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spans Tampa Bay remained closed yesterday morning because of high winds, but Tampa and St Petersburg escaped major damage.
In Wakulla County, south of Tallahassee, at least seven homes were damaged by falling trees, said Scott Nelson, the county’s emergency manager.
At 11 am, Hermine had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, the Hurricane Center said.
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