Hurricane Idalia updates: Biden promises to ‘take care of Florida’ on visit after DeSantis snub

Analysts are estimating that Hurricane Idalia may become the most costly climate disaster in the US this year, according to a report.

The storm — which made landfall near Big Bend, Florida, on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane — caused an estimated $9.36bn based on early estimates from UBS, a risk analysis firm. However, those are only early estimates; Accuweather predicted the total damage could be somewhere between $18bn and $20bn.

Ron DeSantis’ office has said that he won’t meet Joe Biden during the president’s trip to Florida this weekend to inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia.

Organizing a meeting between the Florida governor and Mr Biden would hamper disaster response efforts, a spokesman for Mr DeSantis said.

“In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts,” Jeremy Redfern said in a statement.

Joe Biden offered a tribute to legandary singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who died early Monday aged 76.

Mr Biden called Buffett, known for his tropical pop and beach bum aesthetic, a “poet of paradise” and offered his condolences to the singer’s family. The president was visiting Florida — the subject and inspiration of many of Buffet’s songs as well as his adopted home — to survey the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia on the day the singer’s death was announced.

Joe Biden said that “no one intelligent” can question the severity of the climate crisis during a visit to Florida to survey the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia.

“Nobody can deny the impact of climate crises—at least nobody intelligent can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore,” he said during the visit.

Mr Biden and First Lady Jill Biden toured the state’s west coast, where Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Wednesday morning.

Joe Biden held a press conference in Florida on Saturday to affirm his administration’s committment to Florida’s recovery in the wake of Hurricane Idalia.

The storm made landfall Wednesday morning, leaving a trail of destruction from Big Bend, Florida, inland.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis expressed concerns that Joe Biden’s visit to Florida on Wednesday to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia would hinder recovery efforts.

“One thing I did mention to him on the phone is where these communities — the hardest-hit communities — it would be very disruptive to have the whole kind of security apparatus that goes…I’m sure they’ll be sensitive to that,” Mr DeSantis said during a presser.

The governor declined to meet with Mr Biden, citing concerns for the recovery effort.

Mr DeSantis is aiming to challenge Mr Biden in the 2024 presidential election.

A resident in Florida thanked Joe Biden for the federal government’s assistance in the recovery efforts following Hurricane Idalia.

“We are really an economically challenged area and the help that has come in is just— I can’t say thank you enough,” the resident says in the video.

A Fox News feed carrying the shot died out shortly after the resident made the comments.

In the final hours before Hurricane Idalia struck Florida the storm had grown into a Category 4 beast lurking off the state’s west coast, and the forecast called for it to continue intensifying up until landfall.

An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft had recorded winds up to 130 mph (215 kph), the National Hurricane Center said in an ominous bulletin at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

As the sun rose an hour later, however, there was evidence the hurricane began replacing the wall around its eye — a phenomenon that experts say kept it from further intensifying. Maximum winds had dropped to near 125 mph (205 kph), the Hurricane Center said in a 7 a.m. update.

Then came another surprising twist: A last-minute turn sparing the state’s capital city of Tallahassee from far more serious damage.

“Eyewall replacement cycles are common in major hurricanes, and so when you see that, it does lead to some temporary weakening,” said Kelly Godsey, one of the meteorologists tracking the storm at the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, where his colleagues slept inside the weather office so they could be at work in case the city was devastated.

Joe Biden said “we’re going to save Florida” when asked if he had a statement for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Mr DeSantis said he did not plan to meet with the president during his trip to Florida to survey the wreckage of Hurricane Idalia. The governor said the logistics of securing the area for the visit would slow recovery efforts.