Idalia disrupts infrastructure across the Southeast
But estimates say that by coming ashore in a relatively rural area, the storm could cause less expensive damage than Hurricane Ian last year
Hurricane Idalia rolled across northern Florida today, impacting logistics operations at the ports of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Savannah, and Charleston, and triggering landside slowdowns and even shutdowns on interstate highways including I-75, I-10, and I-95 in both Florida and Georgia.
Additional supply chain functions are likely to be “severely disrupted” for several days to come as workers experience difficulties making it to work due harsh travel conditions, according to analysis by Everstream Analytics. Additional damage will likely include widespread power outages in the area of landfall, with cell phone and internet outages also possible in the hardest hit areas.
Together, those effects could disrupt the loading/unloading of freight and intermodal ramp operations, impact rail operations due to flooded tracks, and lead to flight cancelations at airports throughout northern Florida and southern Georgia, the firm said.
In another measure of storm impacts, the online delivery service DoorDash suspended operations on Tuesday night in the Florida cities of Tallahassee, Sarasota, St. Petersburg, Gainesville, Lakeland, and Tampa Bay.
The storm also brought damaging winds and flooding rains into southern Georgia on Wednesday before taking aim for the eastern Carolinas with storm surge flooding, freshwater flooding inland, and damaging winds expected to continue Wednesday into Thursday, according to AccuWeather.
Despite those disruptions, preliminary damage estimates suggest that Florida may have dodged much worse consequences. Idalia swept ashore at Florida’s Big Bend region with coastal flooding and surge levels of similar size to those of Hurricane Ian last year in Fort Myers. But the fact that the Big Bend area of the state area is far less populated than the area devastated by Ian made a vast difference in total damages. AccuWeather says there were approximately 1 million people within 30 miles of landfall for Ian, while there are just 38,000 people within that distance for Idalia. Along with corresponding differences in structures and infrastructure and home values, AccuWeather estimates that Idalia will cause $18-20 billion in damage versus the $180-20 billion estimate for Ian.
Still, a full recovery will take months. “Assessing the damage from Idalia, we see tremendous flooding in the Big Bend region along with many trees and power lines down. It will take weeks for some parts of Florida to get power back after this devastating storm,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said in a release.
“With the insurance industry in Florida still reeling from major storms like Ian in recent years and some companies even pulling out from offering insurance in the state, premiums are becoming unaffordable for many Floridians and this latest damage from Idalia might exacerbate the problem.”