Idalia makes landfall in Big Bend; flooding, outages in Tampa Bay - St Pete Catalyst
Idalia makes landfall in Big Bend; flooding, outages in Tampa Bay - St Pete Catalyst
Idalia makes landfall in Big Bend; flooding, outages in Tampa Bay
This story will be updated as the situation warrants.
11:20 p.m.: A St. Pete Beach lift station along 59th Avenue has lost power and cannot move water. City officials urge area residents to refrain from using the sanitary system for any purpose. The system could “back up over the next few hours, which could impact homes in the area.”
10:50 a.m.: Bayfront Health medical offices and outpatient clinics remain closed today. Free-standing emergency rooms and Bayfront Health St. Petersburg Hospital are open and operational.
10:30 a.m.: Mayor Ken Welch said about 4,000 homes and businesses remain without power in St. Petersburg, and 22,000 Duke Energy customers lack electricity throughout Pinellas County. Jeff Baker, government and community relations manager for Duke, said crews restored service to about 37,654 customers by 10 a.m.
Hurricane Idalia made landfall just before 8 a.m. Wednesday near Keaton Beach, in Florida’s Big Bend area, according to the National Hurricane Center, as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph.
Keaton Beach is in Taylor County, approximately 200 miles north of St. Petersburg.
Flooding and power outages have been reported in St. Petersburg and on the Gulf barrier islands.
The National Hurricane Center is issuing advisories on Hurricane Franklin, located a couple of hundred miles west-northwest of Bermuda, and on Tropical Depression Eleven, located several hundred miles east-southeast of Bermuda.
Flooding on the St. Pete Pier Wednesday morning. Photo by Rui Farias, executive director of the St. Petersburg Museum of History.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.