Central Florida seeing 500-year flood event, damage will take years to repair, DeSantis says
There is potentially major flooding in Orange and Seminole counties and St. Johns River, potentially up to Jacksonville in northeast Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday.
"The amount of water that's been rising and will likely continue to rise today, even as the storm is passing, is basically a 500-year flood event. And I know Seminole County has done evacuations, I know they've opened shelters, but we're gonna see a lot of images about the destruction that was done in southwest Florida and obviously we have massive assets there," DeSantis said.
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"This storm is having broad impacts across the state and some of the flooding you're going to see in areas hundreds of miles from where this [storm] made landfall are going to set records. And that's going to obviously be the things that will need to be responded to," DeSantis added.
The damage caused by the storm will likely take years to repair, he said.
"You're looking at a storm that's changed the character of a significant part of our state. And this is going to require not just emergency response now, in the days or weeks ahead. I mean, this is going to require years of effort to be able to rebuild and to come back," DeSantis said.