STEINHATCHEE, Taylor County — In Steinhatchee, a town in Taylor County just south of where Hurricane Idalia made landfall, cleanup is now underway.
Idalia made landfall in Florida's Big Bend near Keaton Beach just before 8 a.m. ET., with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph.
As of 7:42 p.m. Wednesday, Jason Haythorn, a public information officer with Southeast Florida Regional All Hazards Incident Management Team, told WPTV that Tri-County is reporting 7,931 customer power outages for Taylor County. The population is about 20,000.
Haythorn said the number of rescues is not known yet, as it's not been reported back to the Emergency Operations Center.
Yet a WPTV crew saw multiple first responder crews, including those from Miami-Dade County, searching the area for those needing help.
At a blue house right on the water, Skip Pattison and his mother, Bobbi, scrape muck off Bobbi Pattison's front porch.
Inside her home, her furniture was upended by flood waters that reached 5 feet. Her home now needs to be gutted, and her belongings are a loss.
"Got a lot of work to do," Bobbi Pattison. siad.
"All of the appliances have to be thrown away," Skip Pattison added. "They’ve been inundated with water."
Thankfully, the Pattisons have insurance, but down the road, Cory Hall, who had more than 7 feet of flooding and saw wind blow off the side of his house, doesn't have insurance, nor another place to go.
"It’s messed up," Hall said. “It’s non-livable.”
"What are you going to do?" WPTV's Kate Hussey asked.
"I don't know," Hall said.
Jessie White said his house fared OK, but said multiple structures in the town were damaged, including businesses and restaurants.
WPTV witnessed several businesses flooded out, including a food pantry, while many roads were also underwater as of Wednesday afternoon.
We also saw sheds lifted off their foundations, and piles of debris strewn about the area. Docks were upended, picnic tables on their sides, and personal belongings now litter the yards of neighbors several streets down.
"Yeah, I'd say it’s pretty bad," Trevor Kennedy said.
Hussey found Kennedy digging through mud for belongings of his own. As he did, he said he hadn't yet been able to check on the status of his home, but was thankful he at least survived the storm after riding it out.
"It was the winds," Kennedy said. "I was more scared than anybody else.”
His roommate, Sherri Romblon, also rode out the storm, and said there were many times during the storm she began to regret it.
"The water, it came in fast, I mean like really fast," said Romblon.
Romblon showed WPTV the water level on her home, which came up at about 5 feet.
"It was like maybe three inches from the doorway, that’s how high the water was," Romblon said.
She's thankful she still has a home, while others, like Hall, don't know what the path forward may be.
Yet the Pattisons stayed positive, clinging to each other, and to the others in the community who have since rallied together to help one another, an example of community the storm cannot wash away.
“I think everyone knows what needs to be done, and who needs to do it, and when you have extra ability you pass it out when you can," said Bobbi Pattison.
Pattison said his mother will move into a new house in Virginia, and in the meantime will stay with her sister in Gainesville, who didn't get any damage.
Although crews were not able to provide reports of injuries or fatalities to WPTV, those we talked to who rode out the storm said their family members and neighbors made it out OK.
