The power flickered off as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was giving on update on Hurricane Idalia on Wednesday morning.
The outage in Tallahassee lasted just a few seconds before generators kicked in, local news station WJXT reported.
More than 100,000 customers are without power in the state, according to power outage.us, as Idalia steamed toward Florida’s Big Bend region during a dangerous Category 4 storm on Wednesday morning.
Idalia was about 60 miles west of Cedar Key and 145 miles south of Tallahassee, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in its latest advisory at 5 a.m. ET. It was moving north at 18 miles per hour.
Gov. RonDeSantis/ X
Florida residents living in vulnerable coastal areas were ordered to pack up and leave as Idalia neared, threatening to bring deadly storm surges and destructive winds to an area that had never before endured a major hurricane.
“Don’t put your life at risk by doing anything dumb at this point,” DeSantis said at Wednesday morning’s news conference. “This thing’s powerful. If you’re inside, just hunker down until it gets past you.”
Idalia was projected to come ashore with sustained winds of at least 130 mph in the Big Bend region, where the Florida Panhandle curves into the peninsula. Storm surge could rise as high as 16 feet in some places, forecasters have warned.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.