Under 10,000 without power, all school districts reopen a week after Idalia recovery began

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Around one week since major Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region, 8,000 or fewer customers are now without power and all school districts have reopened.

The storm peaked at Category 4 strength and made landfall near Keaton Beach as a Category 3, bringing devastating storm surge and damage.

“All school districts that closed due to Idalia have reopened just one week after landfall,” DeSantis celebrated Thursday. “We are thankful for the principals, teachers, school district staff, parents and @EducationFL who worked hard to get our students back in the classroom.”

Thursday morning, outages sat at around 8,000, but they are continuing to decline.

Counties that still have some outages are Taylor, Lafayette, Suwannee, Madison and Hamilton.

Florida’s recovery from Idalia has continued, with the governor requesting a federal fisheries disaster declaration to help the fishing industry in the Big Bend area rebuild on Wednesday.

“The Big Bend’s fishing industry took a direct hit from Hurricane Idalia, and as a result, so did the many residents who make their livings on the water here,” DeSantis said, writing to the Biden administration.

“One of the most important keys to recovery is getting people back to work. I am calling on the federal government to help Floridians who depend on these fisheries get back on their feet,” the governor said.

Tens of thousands of linemen and other crews were staged before Idalia, anticipating outages and damage.

Earlier this week, DeSantis was joined by Fox News host and former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in serving dinner to linemen.

“We’re grateful for all they’ve done to help Floridians impacted by the storm,” DeSantis said.

At the peak, more than half-a-million customers lost power due to the storm. Last Friday, a few days after the storm made landfall, outages totaled around 100,000. At the start of this week on Monday, they rested at around 30,000 – now below 10,000.

“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.

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.