DeSantis serves dinner to linemen with Kayleigh McEnany after Idalia

PERRY, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis was joined by Fox News commentator Kayleigh McEnany Tuesday evening to serve linemen dinner as they continue power restoration efforts.

Hurricane Idalia resulted in more than half-a-million customers across Florida to lose power, primely north of Tampa and east of parts of the Panhandle.

However, as of Wednesday morning, only around 12,000 customers are out and the most severely impacted areas in the Big Bend are more swiftly being restored.

Counties still requiring more restoration are Taylor, Lafayette, Suwannee, Madison and Hamilton; however, outages in those areas are substantially lower than they were during and immediately after the storm.

“I had a great time serving dinner to linemen in Perry with @kayleighmcenany,” DeSantis posted on X. “We’re grateful for all they’ve done to help Floridians impacted by the storm.”

McEnany was one of former President Donald Trump’s White House press secretaries.

She accompanied DeSantis to also host an interview with the governor, who is running for president in 2024.

Monday evening, DeSantis celebrated more than 95% having their power restored just under a week since Idalia’s landfall, which occurred at Category 3 intensity.

“Restoring power to the homes and businesses of impacted Floridians is an important step in the recovery process and would not be possible without the hard work of our utility linemen,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis’ administration worked with local authorities and electricity providers to stage around 30,000 linemen, tree trimmers and other crews to prepare for Idalia’s impacts.

“Crews will remain in the impacted areas until all accounts that can safely receive power are brought back online,” the governor’s office said.

As of Monday morning, outages were at around 30,000. Last Friday, they neared 100,000.

“We were ready for this. We had search and rescue teams staged, National Guard, we had 1.2 million gallons of gasoline in the event of fuel shortages. We had over 30,000 lineman to restore power. And so as soon as the storm passed, our first responders were on the scene checking on people,” DeSantis said last week.

Florida’s disaster response is ongoing.

DeSantis activated a small business loan program to help relief efforts, celebrated private corporations like Publix and Chick-fil-A donating to recovery, along with activating the Florida Disaster Fund to help raise and disburse more money.

DeSantis’ campaign also announced the resumption of campaign activities this week after previously halting his campaign to address Hurricane Idalia.