Hurricane Idalia leaves trail of floods and wreckage in south-eastern US

Recovery efforts were under way in four states on Thursday as the remains of Hurricane Idalia, still a tropical storm with 60mph winds, moved into the Atlantic off the coast of the Carolinas.

Crews were sifting through wreckage across North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, where the storm came ashore on Wednesday as a category 3 hurricane with gusts of 160mph and sent a surge of seawater up to 16ft high inland through vulnerable coastal areas.

Torrential rain and inland flooding were still likely in North Carolina on Thursday, officials warned.

Analysts said that Idalia, which unofficially is being blamed for the deaths of two motorists in Florida, could become the costliest climate disaster to affect the US this year, with an initial estimated price tag close to $10bn.

Roofs were torn from some buildings, houses were submerged by water from the Gulf of Mexico and flash flooding, and thousands of downed trees and power lines littered a trail from Florida’s west coast to Wilmington, North Carolina.

Record or near-record high water levels were reported in many areas, including Charleston Harbor, South Carolina and Cedar Key, Clearwater Beach and St Petersburg in Florida, the National Weather Service said.

“Areas of flash, urban, and moderate river flooding, with considerable impacts, will continue across coastal North Carolina through today,” Daniel Brown, a senior storm specialist at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, wrote in a morning update.

“Tropical storm conditions are expected in north-eastern South Carolina and portions of eastern North Carolina today.”

After leaving the US mainland early Thursday, Idalia’s center was forecast to continue weakening as it moves towards the south-east and an uncertain path south-west of Bermuda by the weekend. It will remain a tropical storm, but no longer threatening land, for at least the next several days, Brown said.

As a reminder that mid-August to mid-October is the peak of the six-month Atlantic hurricane season that runs until November, Idalia is one of five active tropical disturbances.

Tropical Storm Jose formed on Thursday morning, the 10th named storm of what the NHC said would be an above average season featuring six to 11 hurricanes, up to five of them “major”, of category 3 status or higher with sustained winds in excess of 111mph.

“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis any more,” Joe Biden said Wednesday afternoon as he addressed recovery efforts for Idalia at the White House.

“Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage.”

In a rare moment of political unity, Biden praised Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination to run against him, for his handling of the storm.

“I think he trusts my judgment and my desire to help, and I trust him to be able to suggest this is not about politics, this is about taking care of the people of his state,” the president said.

Biden was quick to approve DeSantis’s request for a federal disaster declaration, freeing rescue and recovery resources and personnel, in addition to the governor’s own emergency declarations in 46 of 67 counties.

Authorities in Florida, where only about 150,000 customers remained without power on Thursday morning after a peak of more than half a million, expressed relief that Idalia’s core remained north of the heavily populated Tampa Bay area and made landfall just after daybreak at Keaton Beach on Florida’s Big Bend, a largely rural region of the state.

Across the region, from Florida to North Carolina, about 300,000 were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us.

In Valdosta, Georgia, where the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, announced a state of emergency lasting until early September, and in Florida’s Pasco county north of Tampa, boat crews were attempting to rescue dozens of residents trapped in flooded homes on Wednesday night.

“We have rapid assessment teams that have been pre-positioned, ready to go out as soon as it’s safe to do so, personnel that will integrate in with the state personnel to go see what the damages are,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), told reporters.

“It’s far too early to even estimate what the cost is. It’s still unsafe in many parts to even go out. What’s going to happen over the next several days is to really get a good understanding and an initial estimate of what we think the costs will be, and what the amount of impact to these communities has been.”