Hurricane Idalia
August 2023 – February 2024
Hamilton and Suwannee Counties
On August 30, 2023, Hurricane Idalia hit Florida’s Big Bend area as a category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph. According to the Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative, more than 87% of the cooperative’s customers in Suwannee County were without power, representing some 16,300 homes and businesses. In Hamilton County, just 80 miles from where the storm made landfall, 100% of its customers were down.
To expedite a return to normalcy, Bergeron Emergency Services responded immediately by deploying 100 crews to the main arteries of I-10 in Suwannee County and I-75 in Hamilton County. To remove and manage storm debris,100 trucks were deployed, half of which were 140 cubic yard double barrel grapple trucks.
By October, Bergeron Emergency Services’s contract was expanded to include the management and removal of storm debris from all state roads in Hamilton and Suwannee counties.
As 2024 began, Bergeron had already managed close to one million cubic yards of storm debris in the two counties. Work was completed before the end of February 2024.
