As Hurricane Idalia makes its way across Florida, with heavy rains and wind battering the state, images and videos capturing the storm's wrath are spreading across social media. Officials are warning locals to stay off the streets to ride out the storm.
Idalia was downgraded from a Category 4 to an "extremely dangerous" Category 3 hurricane early Wednesday morning, shortly before it made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida around 8 a.m. ET, with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph.
The National Hurricane Center has warned of “catastrophic impacts” from storm surge, and parts of the Big Bend region could see up to 16 feet of storm surge.
Videos taken before Idalia officially made landfall foreshadowed the heavy rains and winds it would bring ashore throughout the day.
An early morning video the Tampa Police Department posted to Facebook showed waves from the coast crashing over a railing and flooding the waterfront road of Bayshore Boulevard as winds whipped palm trees and traffic lights around 2:45 a.m.
"If you see flooded roadways- turn around, don’t drown," the department wrote.
Reporter Beth Rousseau of NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa shared a video of flooded streets in Pasco County, about 35 miles north of Tampa, shortly before 7 a.m.
One person died in a weather-related car crash in Pasco County early Wednesday, the Florida Highway Patrol said, after a car veered off a roadway and collided with a tree.
In Tampa, traffic camera images showed part of a major highway, Interstate 275, flooded as waves washed over the Howard Frankland Bridge.
In St. Petersburg, about 25 miles southwest of Tampa, a fire rescue team pulled someone from flooding at a mobile home park shortly before 7 a.m., the police department said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, alongside a video showing a car and multiple homes submerged in water.
About 200 miles north, in the city of Perry, the hurricane's western eyewall — the region just outside the eye, or the center of the storm — brought strong winds and heavy rains about an hour after it made landfall, according to a video posted on X.
In St. Petersburg, police urged locals to stay home and avoid trying to drive in flooded areas, including a parking lot submerged in several feet of water shortly before 6:30 a.m.
The storm has also led to issues not captured in these images — including widespread power outages, closed airports and canceled or delayed flights.
