Irma is now gone but the massive hurricane left memories that can be describe as nightmares.
“There is devastation, and I just hope everybody survived,” said Governor Rick Scott said during a press conference in Opa-locka, at the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Miami.
While in the state’s capital, Tallahassee, things are going well with a short road to recovery post Irma, the southern region, up the west coast, things are not going as well.
Brock Long, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator says an estimated indicate 25% of the houses in the Florida Keys have been destroyed, and 65% have major damage.
“Basically, every house in the Keys was impacted some way,” Long explained but added those numbers are early estimates and could change.
The Florida Keys, normally well populated with residents and visitors, remains closed. Millions of people are without electricity. Recover and clean up is already estimated to reach into the billions of dollars.
Governor Scott took a flight with the U.S. Coast Guard to get an aerial view of the hard-hit areas along the Southwest coast. While the damage included destroyed boats and marinas, homes without roofs, flooding, washed out roads and tons of displaced beach sand, Scott said it’s “not as bad as we thought the storm surge would do.”
Scott chose to not speculate about costs of Irma.
Moody’s Analytics initial estimate for projected property damage from Hurricane Irma fallRevos between $64 billion and $92 billion.
President Donald Trump approved a request from Scott for federal relief.
“I know for our entire state, but especially the Keys, it’s going to be a long road. There is a lot of damage. I know everyone wants to get back to normal. I know everyone wants to get started, but you’ve got to be patient,” Scott said. “We’ve got to get the first responders to the Keys. We’ve got to get water going again. We’ve got to get electricity going again. We’ve got to get sewers going again. It’s going to take a lot of time.”
Almost 8,000 members of the Florida Army and Air National Guard are working search and rescue efforts along-side aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Iwo Jima and USS New York..