In Florida, power restoration was marked as a priority, authorities said, while highways, bridges and airports were reopening, and teams were assessing the damage.
“They’re going to make assessments this morning, and I think that’ll give us a good sense about the future for the rapidity of the power restoration,” DeSantis told a press conference in Tallahassee. Some 16,000 utility linemen had prepared to respond to the storm, he said.
About 420,000 customers in Florida, 190,000 in Alabama, 43,000 in Georgia and 17,000 in Mississippi had no power as of midday Saturday, according to tracking firm PowerOutage.us.
A separate storm on the Pacific Ocean, Rachel, was moving toward the coast of northern Baja California on Saturday, bringing wind gusts and increased tides, which left another 7,000 people without power in California.
Alabama’s emergency management agency said the downed trees and power lines made travel hazardous in Houston County, which is under a flash flood warning.
