Hurricane Idalia rips 100-year-old oak tree in half as it falls on Governor Ron DeSantis’ mansion
The wrath of Hurricane Idalia spared not even the Florida governor’s home.
A 100-year-old oak tree appeared to be split in half by the strongest hurricane to strike the Big Bend region of the Sunshine State in 127 years.
Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis shared a photo showing the tree fallen on the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee, the state capital.
‘Mason, Madison, Mamie and I were home at the time, but thankfully no one was injured,’ she wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday afternoon, referring to her three young children.
‘Our prayers are with everyone impacted by the storm.’
Governor Ron DeSantis was not home at the mansion on North Adams Avenue. He said his wife called to tell him about the incident and that all his family members were ‘fine’.
‘I don’t know that it fell on like the residence per side. I think it was a little bit off to the side,’ he said.
He added: ‘If they do cut down the whole tree that’s just going to be more room for my kids to hit baseballs.’
Hurricane Idalia made landfall as a powerful Category 3 storm in Keaton Beach on Wednesday morning. It barreled ashore about 90 miles southeast of Tallahassee.
Governor DeSantis spent the day traveling across the state holding press conferences providing updates on the hurricane.
In one presser in Tallahassee, DeSantis was left in the dark as a power outage happened as he was speaking.
‘There we go with our with our power here,’ he said.
The outage lasted about 10 seconds, as generators brought the lights back on.
As of noon, more than 250,000 households were without power, according to the Florida Public Service Commission.
The hurricane killed at least two people and inundated many parts of the region.
Videos from the coastal town of Steinhatchee by the mouth of a river showed flooding so intense that two mansions were underwater except for their roofs, and looked like two tiny islands in a sea.
The hurricane weakened to a Category 1 storm as it headed toward Georgia, but authorities warned that it remained dangerous.
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