TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell will join Governor Ron DeSantis in visiting areas hit the hardest by Hurricane Idalia.
At a press conference in Tallahassee, the governor and FEMA administrator joined the Florida Department of Emergency Management to provide updates on state and federal recovery efforts, including search and rescue teams, debris cleanup and power restoration efforts.
DeSantis began by commending the "resilience" of the communities in the Big Bend area, which were hit directly by Idalia and the most in need of recovery aid. He said Florida was coordinating rescue efforts between city rescue teams, the Coast Guard, the National Guard and state agencies and that there had been 40 successful rescues made as of Thursday, 29 of which had been made by the Florida National Guard.
DeSantis also touted efforts to clear roadways impacted by debris. He said that all of Florida's bridges were cleared of debris within 12 hours of Idalia making landfall. And he said that utility crews had restored power to 420,000 accounts that had lost power during the storm, with approximately 146,000 outages still being dealt with across the state.
DeSantis said Florida is formally requesting a major disaster declaration from the federal government for all 25 counties impacted by the storm.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said that FEMA officials would be visiting the impacted areas along with DeSantis to observe and assess the damage and from there determine the best level of assistance and federal support to provide. She added that FEMA would process Florida's emergency declaration request "as quickly as possible".