Hurricane Idalia leaves 2 dead as it batters Florida with 110mph winds and damages 1000s of homes with 6ft storm surge | The Sun

HURRICANE Idaila has made landfall in Florida, battering the state with 111 mph winds, leaving two dead and thousands of homes submerged in water and without power.

The National Hurricane Center warned the Category 3 storm, which has now weakened to a Category 2 hurricane, would bring destructive winds and catastrophic storm surges to the state.

The Center confirmed the storm made landfall in Florida's Big Bend at 7:45am as a Category 3 hurricane.

Idalia was briefly upgraded to a Category 4 storm early Wednesday after 130 mph winds were reported.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told residents who did not evacuate to stay put as the state braces for Idalia’s wrath.

DeSantis said: "If you're inside, just hunker down until it gets past ya.

"Don't mess with this storm. Don't do anything that's going to put yourself in jeopardy."

He added: "We are ready to go," as he urged Americans to stay safe and not do anything "dumb."

DeSantis warned there was a "need for all hands to be on deck."

The governor's warning came after National Weather Service officials in Tallahassee branded Idalia an "unprecedented event."

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Storm surges could be as high as 16 feet with footage already being posted online of huge waves battering homes.

One person posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, of a storm surge on Horseshoe Beach.

The video showed the catastrophic event as huge waves rolled past an isolated house and submerged the camera.

Meanwhile, other Floridians are posting pictures of road closures and shocking images of the damage already caused by the hurricane.

One X user posted a photograph of their childhood home taken from a security camera.

"Hudson, on the Gulf. My childhood home. Cameras went out at 7:08am this morning, and this was the last pic," the post read.

The home can be seen surrounded by water, with its residents left to worry about what will greet them after the hurricane took out their camera.

As of Wednesday morning, over 130,000 Floridians were without power, according to PowerOutage.

EXTREME WEATHER CONDITIONS LEAD TO TWO DEATHS

The storm has led to the death of two men, who died in separate rain-related car crashes early Wednesday, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

A 59-year-old man from Gainesville was driving his Toyota pickup truck when it swerved and veered into a ditch following extreme rainy conditions.

The driver was pronounced dead at the scene, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The second incident involved a 40-year-old man from Spring Hill who was driving a pickup truck during inclement weather, police said.

Authorities said the man was driving too fast for the weather conditions and lost control of his vehicle before colliding with a tree.

The man died from his injuries at the crash site, FHP said.

Water levels could continue to rise with a rare blue supermoon tonight.

The moon will be closest to the Earth, and the intense gravitational pull could create higher tides.

"I would say the timing is pretty bad for this one," Brian Haines, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Charleston, South Carolina, told the Associated Press.

It is rare to have a hurricane and supermoon occur at the same time, as the next blue supermoon won't appear until January 2037.

A YEAR AFTER HURRICANE IAN

Idalia’s wrath comes nearly a year after Floridians were left reeling from the catastrophic events of Hurricane Ian last September.

Ian barreled through the Sunshine State on September 28, 2022, bringing deadly 150 mph winds, making it just shy of a Category 5 storm.

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Nearly 150 people were killed, making it the deadliest hurricane in the state since 1935.

The storm damaged more than 52,000 structures in the state, leading to an estimated $109billion in damages across the region.

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