Hurricane Idalia updates: Biden promises to ‘take care of Florida’ on visit after DeSantis snub

First a shooting, then a storm.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing a one-two punch testing his leadership at a critical moment for his presidential campaign, with the Republican moving to cast aside his role as culture warrior and show the country that he can govern through crises.

Florida residents shared heartbreaking photos of the destruction caused by Hurricane Idalia after the powerful storm swept into the state on Wednesday.

Idalia made landfall around 8am as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm with 120mph winds and warnings of “catastrophic” coastal surge up to 15 feet in places. More than 250,000 customers were left without power on Wednesday.

The hurricane came ashore near Keaton Beach in Big Bend, southeast of Tallahassee, an area known as “Florida’s nature coast” and less densely-populated than other parts of the state.

But that was cold comfort for the small, tranquil communities dotting the coastline with Idalia forecast to be the strongest storm to hit the region in more than 100 years.

The Florida attorney general has defended Governor Ron DeSantis after he discouraged looters and referenced signs put up saying “you loot, we shoot”.

Joe Biden will visit Florida today to inspect the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia’s destruction and offer support to the storm’s victims.

Notably absent from his itinerary, however, is Governor Ron DeSantis.

Though Mr DeSantis has made clear his intentions of securing the GOP primary nomination and dethroning Mr Biden in 2024, the governor’s campaign said it was logistics, not bad blood, that kept the men from meeting.

“We don’t have any plans for the Governor to meet with the President tomorrow,” Jeremy Redfern, Mr DeSantis’s spokesman, said in an email to Reuters. “In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts.”

In the final hours before Hurricane Idalia struck Florida the storm had grown into a Category 4 beast lurking off the state’s west coast, and the forecast called for it to continue intensifying up until landfall.

An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft had recorded winds up to 130 mph (215 kph), the National Hurricane Center said in an ominous bulletin at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

As the sun rose an hour later, however, there was evidence the hurricane began replacing the wall around its eye — a phenomenon that experts say kept it from further intensifying. Maximum winds had dropped to near 125 mph (205 kph), the Hurricane Center said in a 7 a.m. update.

Then came another surprising twist: A last-minute turn sparing the state’s capital city of Tallahassee from far more serious damage.

Analysts are estimating that Hurricane Idalia may become the most costly climate disaster in the US this year, according to a report.

The storm — which made landfall near Big Bend, Florida, on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane — caused an estimated $9.36bn based on early estimates from UBS, a risk analysis firm. However, those are only early estimates; Accuweather predicted the total damage could be somewhere between $18bn and $20bn.

The White House will seek an additional $4bn to address natural disasters as part of its supplemental funding request — a sign that wildfires, flooding and hurricanes that have intensified during a period of climate change are imposing ever higher costs on US taxpayers.

The Biden administration had initially requested $12bn in extra funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund, which helps with rescue and relief efforts. But an official in the Democratic administration said that the fires in Hawaii and Louisiana as well as flooding in Vermont and Hurricane Idalia striking Florida and other Southeastern states mean that a total of $16bn is needed.

Ron DeSantis’ office has said that he won’t meet Joe Biden during the president’s trip to Florida this weekend to inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia.

Organizing a meeting between the Florida governor and Mr Biden would hamper disaster response efforts, a spokesman for Mr DeSantis said.

“In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts,” Jeremy Redfern said in a statement.

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Last year it was Hurricane Ian that drew a bead on Tampa Bay before abruptly shifting east to strike southwest Florida more than 130 miles (210 kilometers) away. This time it was Hurricane Idalia, which caused some serious flooding as it sideswiped the area but packed much more punch at landfall Wednesday, miles to the north.

In fact, the Tampa Bay area hasn’t been hit directly by a major hurricane for more than a century. The last time it happened, there were just a few hundred thousand people living in the region, compared with more than 3 million today.