- On August 30, 2023, Hurricane Idalia knocked out power to thousands in Taylor County.
- While the power is back on, area businesses are still dealing with the lingering effects of the storm.
- Watch the video above to hear from those who are still working toward recovery.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Hurricane Idalia brought nearly a week of power outages to Perry, in some cases longer. I’m First To Know Meteorologist Riley Winch. One year after Idalia and less than a month after Debby, I'm checking to see what those two storms have done to the power grid here.
“This was ground zero for where the storm hit."
WATCH VIDEO OF IDALIA KNOCKING OUT POWER DURING FORREST SAUNDERS' LIVE REPORT FROM THE STORM IN 2023:
One year ago, the first major hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend in recorded history slammed Taylor County, hitting the town of Perry especially hard. “In Perry we definitely saw extreme damage. Lots of trees down, lots of poles that were impacted, and lines that were hit by trees and debris." That’s Ana Gibbs, a spokesperson for Duke Energy. She explains that while Idalia knocked out power to approximately 200,000 customers statewide, “the majority of customers were back on within 24 hours after the storm hit, so really, some of the hardest hit areas did take a little bit longer.”
And one of the hardest hit places was Perry. This means lots of utility crews were stationed in Perry after the storm, where
“They have to have a bed to sleep in every night, they have to have food." One of the places utility crews spent time during Idalia’s recovery was the EconoLodge in Perry. It's coincidentally managed by a man with the same name, Perry Pustam. “I had guys with pickup trucks, with chainsaws, coming to do work, clearing roads, everything. And they stayed here.”
And while crews worked to restore power, they were also living without it.
We were without power for six days.
It’s not hard to see why power was out for an extended period of time. Look at the extreme winds Pustam recorded as the EconoLodge was hit with some of Idalia’s strongest winds. “Everything was pretty much down. The Burger King sign, the McDonalds sign, pieces of plastic, pieces of things all over the place. We had roof damage, we had tree damages in the back.”
SEE HURRICANE IDALIA'S DAMAGE THE DAY OF THE STORM IN THE VIDEO BELOW:
“Across the road, that hotel, their roof on this side, their entire thing came off, and this is all towards the end when we got a heavier set of winds coming through.”
Pustam tells me the recovery since Idalia moved through has been challenging.
“We couldn’t replace the roof so we repaired what we can, and now I have myself and one of my guys that works with me doing most of the work ourselves”
And in the year since Idalia, he estimates his motel is, “probably about $200,000 down in income”
Another hurricane, Debby, hit Perry earlier this August. “The thing about Debby is that it was bad, it wasn’t as severe, by far, and there weren’t as many people affected because again, the power lines didn’t stay off for very long.”
When looking towards the future, Pustam hopes that, “we can actually have more investments, more anything that can drive businesses in.”
Idalia serves as a reminder that the recovery process after a storm can last years after impact. From the Perry neighborhood, I’m meteorologist Riley Winch, ABC 27.
