CEDAR KEY, Fla. – Sue Colson, a retired nurse, said on Sunday that the residents of Cedar Key, the island where she serves as a mayor in Levy County, were frustrated after Hurricane Helene.
There wasn’t water to put out a fire. Debris threatened clam farms. There was saltwater intrusion in the water wells. There were power outages. There wasn’t a working water and wastewater service, and there weren’t enough portlets.
“I can’t have volunteers on the island if I can’t have a place for them to go to the bathroom,” Colson said.
Standing water and debris was not only challenging in Cedar Key. FEMA was active in six states.
Helene’s storm surge was catastrophic even before it landed as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend. It was to blame for deaths in other parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. The flooding was destructive even in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters on Saturday it was “like a bomb went off.” There were ongoing search and rescue missions amid billions in damage.
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INTERACTIVE SLIDERS
Satellite images by Google Maps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show areas before and after Hurricane Helene in Florida’s Taylor and Levy counties. Slide the middle bar to see the changes.
DEKLE BEACH
DARK ISLAND
KEATON BEACH
CEDAR KEY
STEINHATCHEE
FISH CREEK
BIRD ISLAND
EZELL BEACH
Sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite images on Maptiler with OpenStreetMap, Google Earth and Google Map views, and Knightlab JuxtaposeX (Opensource code)
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