While the storm wreaked havoc on a slice of old Florida that has escaped massive coastal development, its path and forward speed spared the state's insurance industry a huge financial hit, said elected Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, whose agency oversees the state Office of Insurance Regulation.
“This is somebody’s way of life. This is the way somebody took care of their families and their families took care of them and they’re hard working people,” Patronis said. “Mother Nature’s going to wipe them off the map and they’re going to say, ‘You know what? Maybe this is a sign for us to cash out.’”
The co-op warned its customers to prepare to be without power for two weeks. It lost most of its big power lines that bring electricity into its territory, along with more than 400 broken poles and 2,500 cases of damaged equipment or downed lines. It wasn't as grim to the west, where Tri-County Electric Cooperative initially warned its 14,500 customers of two-week outages, but revised that to saying all but the worst-damaged few hundred homes would be back online by Tuesday.
One Georgia resident died when a tree fell on him as he tried to clear another tree from a road. Officials said there appeared to be a storm-related death around Gainesville, Florida, but did not release details. Idalia was a tropical storm by the time it reached South Carolina, but it brought a storm surge that — along with a periodic, unusually high tide — flooded Charleston and almost every beach community.