Governor Ron DeSantis says Hurricane Debby didn’t do as much damage as some other hurricanes that have hit Florida. But there were four fatalities, and there’s still a lot of flooding.
“There is going to be damage from the storm, there has been, there will be," DeSantis said. "But compared to some of the things Floridians have been used to in the last five or 10 years…This is not Hurricane Michael, this is not Hurricane Ian, but it is a very saturating, wet storm.”
State emergency managers expect the flooding to continue when the hurricane makes its way to Georgia and further north.
But given all the support and equipment that Florida mobilized in advance of Debby, DeSantis said, the state didn’t need to use much.
“And I think that’s the way to do it. We want to make sure we’re prepared for the worst and hope for the best," he said. "You never want to have a storm, but compared to Ian and even Idalia, this one is not leaving the same destruction in its wake. We know there’s a lot of water, we know that presents hazards and we’ll be ready to work accordingly.”
At an afternoon press conference, the governor said a quarter of a million Floridians remain without power. He called the storm mainly a water event.
