Hurricane Idalia lays waste to Florida before sweeping into Georgia

Idalia has weakened to a tropical storm after roaring into Florida's Big Bend region as a powerful hurricane.

Idalia split trees in half, ripped roofs off hotels and turned small cars into boats on Wednesday before sweeping into Georgia as a still-powerful storm that flooded roadways and sent residents running for higher ground.

After coming ashore, Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach at 7:45 am as a high-end Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 205 kph.

It had weakened to a tropical storm with winds of 113 kph by Wednesday afternoon.

As the eye moved inland, high winds shredded signs, blew off roofs, sent sheet metal flying and snapped tall trees.

But as of midday on Wednesday, there were no confirmed deaths in Florida, although fatal traffic accidents in two counties may end up being storm-related, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said.

Biden: Hurricane ‘still very dangerous’

President Joe Biden warned that Idalia was "still very dangerous" even though the storm had weakened.

"I don't think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore," Biden told reporters at the White House.

"Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage."

Some Republicans in Congress have threatened to investigate the federal response in Hawaii after some Maui residents complained that the government wasn't sending enough early help.

Biden said he had spoken to the governors of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, all states affected by Idalia.

He received his second briefing in as many days from Deanne Criswell, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and directed her to spend Thursday with DeSantis to start assessing the hurricane damage and the needs there.

'Not sitting on us'

More than 265,000 customers in Florida and 105,000 in Georgia were without electricity as of 1:30 pm, according to tracking website PowerOutage.us.

More than 30,000 utility workers in Florida were gathering to make repairs as quickly as possible in the hurricane’s wake.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp told reporters that there were no confirmed reports of injuries.

"The good thing is this is a narrow storm, and it’s very fast-moving, so it’s not sitting on us and dumping even more rain," Kemp said.

Airports in the region, including Tampa International Airport, planned to restart commercial operations either on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday.

By midday on Wednesday, more than 900 flights had been cancelled in Florida and Georgia, according to tracking service FlightAware.