Hurricane Idalia makes landfall in Florida

Isabel Keane / NEW YORK POST 

Hurricane Idalia made landfall Wednesday morning in Florida as a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, promising to unleash “life-threatening” storm surges, damaging winds, and copious amounts of rain upon millions of Sunshine State residents.

Idalia, which has strengthened significantly in the past 24 hours, had briefly been categorized as a Category 4 storm before winds tapered off at a relentless 125 mph as it made landfall at 7:45 a.m. near Keaton Beach in Taylor County.

The National Hurricane Center still cautioned, “This change in wind speed does not diminish the threat of catastrophic storm surge and damaging winds.” 

The threat of storm surges spans about 200 miles of Florida’s west coast, including the state’s Big Bend area, a sparsely populated area where the peninsula merges into the Panhandle, which was expecting anywhere from 12 to 16 feet of storm surge. Read more, see photos and videos here.