(The Center Square) – Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Tuesday that while Hurricane Debby had a similar track into Florida’s Big Bend region as last year’s Hurricane Idalia, damage from the Category 1 storm was far less severe.
The storm made landfall near Steinhatchee on Monday and threatens to bring flooding rain from Georgia to the Carolinas.
“Debby was not as powerful as Idalia and the debris and damage were not matched by this storm,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “We had an overwhelming amount of resources, but we didn’t need to use all that was staged. I would much rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best than not be prepared.”
DeSantis said there were 110,600 Floridians without power as of Tuesday morning, with 37,000 of them customers of investor-owned utilities, 73,000 with electric power associations and about 4,000 from municipal utilities. He said about 600,000 accounts had been restored as of Tuesday morning after 17,000 linemen were staged in the area before the storm.
Jefferson County, according to DeSantis, had 99% of its 15,042 residents without power. He also said that 9,400 feet of flood protection devices were utilized around substations and said that helped with avoiding the large number of outages during Idalia.
The second-term GOP governor said $10 million was available from the state’s Emergency Small Business Bridge Loan program, which was activated for the storm. DeSantis said that it provides up to $50,000 in short-term, low interest loans for small business and $100,000 for farmers to make repairs or keep employees on the payroll, among other uses.
The Florida Department of Transportation completed assessments of 10,000 lane miles of state roads and 181 crews are clearing 6,596 miles of roads of limbs and other debris.
The state has also set up nine distribution locations in Dixie, Jefferson, Lafayette, Manatee and Taylor counties to provide food, water and tarps to residents impacted by the storm.