IrmaSpecial

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Wednesday
September 13, 2017
$2
Hurricane Irma
THE MORNING AFTER
Fallen trees,
flooding stun
some parts
of city, region
By Nate Monroe
nate.monroe@jacksonville.com
A local politician once infamously said
the story of Jacksonville is really a tale of
two cities. On Tuesday — one day after
Hurricane Irma pushed water into places
it hadn’t been in at least 150 years, destroying
homes with flood waters and debris —
that was true.
Five Points in Riverside looked Tuesday
like the burgeoning restaurant-and-bar
district it’s been known as for years —
customers likely had to wait for seats.
Just a few blocks away, water-logged
streets remained evidence that something
had gone terribly wrong in the city.
“This storm has conquered me,” one
resident said, reflecting on the damage
flood waters brought to his home on the
corner of Copeland Street and River Boulevard.
Recovery from Hurricane Irma will
mean different things to different people
in Jacksonville, and in the region around
it.
Flooding caused such catastrophic
damage in the North and South Prongs of
Black Creek — rural communities in Clay
County — it stunned longtime residents
and left county officials still unable to provide
an assessment of how extensive the
wreckage is.
Some homes that didn’t flood were
wrecked by fallen trees.
The storm knocked out power to more
than a quarter million JEA customers,
and the utility’s efforts to restore it will
be closely watched and scrutinized in the
coming days — particularly by residents
whose homes lack power despite sustain-
rECovEry continues on A-4
Lisa Darenberg and her son Robert Darenberg clean his first-floor apartment on Cherry Street in Riverside that was inundated with
flood waters from the St. Johns River. (Bruce Lipsky/Florida Times-Union)
Millions without power in state;
food, water, fuel in short supply
FEMA says Irma destroyed one in four homes in Key West. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
FEMA: 1 in 4 Keys homes destroyed;
massive relief, recovery effort begins
By Jason Dearen
& Martha Mendoza
Associated press
LOWER MATECUMBE KEY |
Search-and-rescue teams
made their way into the
Florida Keys’ farthest
reaches Tuesday, while authorities
rushed to repair
the lone highway connecting
the islands and deliver
aid to Hurricane Irma’s
victims. Federal officials
estimated one-quarter of
all homes in the Keys were
destroyed.
Two days after Irma
roared into the island
chain with 130 mph winds,
residents were allowed to
return to the parts of the
Keys closest to Florida’s
mainland.
But the full extent of
the death and destruction
there remained a question
mark because cellphone
service was disrupted and
some places were inaccessible.
“It’s going to be pretty
hard for those coming
home,” said Petrona Hernandez,
whose concrete
home on Plantation Key
with 35-foot walls was unscathed,
unlike others a
few blocks away. “It’s going
to be devastating to them.”
Elsewhere in Florida, life
inched closer to normal,
with some flights again
taking off, many curfews
lifted and major theme
parks reopening. Cruise
ships that extended their
voyages and rode out the
storm at sea began returning
to port with thousands
of passengers.
The number of people
without electricity in the
steamy late-summer heat
dropped to around 10 million
— half of Florida’s
population. Utility officials
warned it could take
10 days or more for power
to be fully restored. About
110,000 people remained in
shelters across Florida.
The number of deaths
blamed on Irma in Florida
climbed to 12, in addition to
four in South Carolina and
two in Georgia. At least 37
people were killed in the
Caribbean.
“We’ve got a lot of work
to do, but everybody’s going
to come together,” Florida
Gov. Rick Scott said.
“We’re going to get this
state rebuilt.”
In hard-hit Naples, on
By Tia Mitchell
tia.mitchell@jacksonville.com
Alfonso Jose pulls his son Alfonso Jr., 2, in a cooler with
his wife, Cristina Ventura, as they wade through their
flooded street to reach an open convenience store in
Bonita Springs. (David Goldman/Associated Press)
TALLAHASSEE | Millions of
Florida utility customers
still don’t have power and
in many parts of the state
food, water and fuel are
scarce. These are the effects
of Hurricane Irma
that Florida responders are
now working to address.
“I know everyone is going
to work hard to try to
get this state back to normal
as fast as we can, to
get the schools back open,
to get people back to normalcy
as soon as possible,”
Gov. Rick Scott told reporters
Tuesday during a visit
to the state Emergency Operations
Center.
Scott boarded a Black
Hawk helicopter in Jacksonville
Tuesday and
toured Hurricane Irma
damage in Duval and St.
Johns counties before returning
to the Tallahassee
EOC to thank staffers,
many of whom have
worked long hours and
sometimes overnight shifts
for several days. Afterward,
he left for Southwest
Florida to tour more areas
ravaged by the storm.
The EOC is staffed by
state and federal agencies,
meteorologists, military
personnel, non-profit organizations
like the Red
Cross and even private
businesses who have a
hand in responding during
times of natural disasters.
In Florida, that usually
means a hurricane has impacted
the state.
What made Irma especially
devastating was its
size. Nearly all of Florida
— the entire peninsula and
parts of the Panhandle —
was impacted. That made
preparing for the storm
and the recovery now underway
more difficult, the
governor said.
“One thing that hurt us
a little bit in the beginning
was the storm was coming
up the state and you
couldn’t pre-position all
the assets you want,” Scott
said. “If it had been in one
coast or the other, it would
tained more damage than
necessitating a shift of
Florida, Scott said. Even
President Donald Trump
appeared to take notice,
posting on Twitter about
“The devastation left by
Hurricane Irma was far
greater, at least in certain
thought — but amazing
have been a little bit easier.”
Jacksonville also sus-
forecasters predicted,
resources to Northeast
recovery efforts.
locations, than anyone
kEys continues on A-4 sTATE continues on A-4
Weather
Coastal flooding
Forecast on A-2
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today's
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thursday
morning's
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COPYRIGHT 2017
NO. 256
152ND YEAR
5 SECTIONS
34 PAGES
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