Florida Turns to Recovery After Irma

From Miami to Naples to Tampa, many Floridians said they felt lucky to have avoided the epic flooding they feared when authorities ordered some 6.5 million people—nearly a third of Florida’s population—to evacuate, and were relieved to discover their communities weren’t wiped out. Few deaths in Florida have been attributed so far to the storm, which killed at least 38 people in the Caribbean, including U.S. territories there. Estimates of insurance losses declined considerably.

But Florida officials still warned of a long recovery ahead after the massive storm barreled up the entire peninsula, dropping heavy rain and causing surging seas. Reconnecting power to most of the state’s 20.6 million people may be a mammoth, weekslong undertaking.

Irma wasn’t done after crossing out of Florida. The storm knocked at least a million power customers offline in Georgia and the Carolinas, according to local utilities, while flooding downtown Charleston, S.C.

The Keys, where Irma made landfall with Category 4 strength early Sunday, appeared to bear the worst of the storm, with water, power and sewer services knocked out amid scenes of overturned mobile homes and boats thrown on top of each other.

Residents who evacuated there may not be able to return for weeks, President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser warned. And the 10,000 people who stayed behind may need to be evacuated, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

“For our entire state but especially for the Keys, it’s going to be a long road,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Monday after an aerial tour on a Coast Guard plane. “There’s a lot of damage.”

Most residents on the archipelago evacuated before the storm, according to officials, and many spent Monday in an anguished search from afar for news of holdouts who remained behind.

With phone lines down and the only road to the Keys inaccessible, displaced residents turned to a Facebook page called “Evacuees of the Keys,” which had more than 7,000 members and hundreds of pleading posts.

Paul Keever, a 56-year-old evacuee from Key Largo, said that the storm battered his 27-slip sailboat marina. “Boats are setting on top of pilings, boats on top of boats,” he said by phone from Orlando, where he had evacuated with his 21-year-old daughter.

Jacksonville, the state’s most populous city, was dealing with “record and historical flooding along the St. Johns River,” which meanders through downtown, the governor said. Much of the sprawling city’s downtown was under water, and city officials said they expected dangerous conditions to continue for days due to heavy rain, high tides and the overtopping of the river.

Officials also warned that river-flooding from rainfalls of more than a foot remained a threat for the rest of the week.

Irma devastated Florida’s power grid, leaving untold numbers in the subtropical state to sweat it out without air conditioning for a repair effort the state’s largest investor-owned utility said could take weeks, even with a record mobilization of utility crews on hand.

“We’ve got to get our hospitals back open. We’ve got to get fuel back here. We’ve got to get our roads open. We’ve got to get everybody their electricity back,” Gov. Scott said. “It is going to be a lot of work to get this done.”

More than 6.5 million power customers—62% of the state—were without power late Monday, according to a state tally. The massive scale of the outages left some two dozen nursing homes and 54 hospitals relying on backup generators, according to trade groups for the sectors.

Gov. Scott talked about the importance of getting fuel back into Florida’s ports to keep those generators running. Two Lee Health hospitals in Fort Myers were without power for a second day Monday with five days of backup diesel, Chief Executive Lawrence Antonucci said.

“We’ll have to have power by then or we’ll have to get refueled,” Dr. Antonucci said.

Tampa’s sprawling port, which mainly handles bulk cargo like cars and fuel, was cleared to reopen Tuesday afternoon.

Interactive: Irma’s Devastating Trail

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While estimates for insured losses dropped, Irma still could be among the costliest storms. AIR Worldwide estimated private-sector insured losses in the U.S. of $20 billion to $40 billion from Irma, which could rival Katrina’s record-setting $50 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. Still, that was below the more than $100 billion forecast by some firms on Friday.

Brooke Bass, who manages property claims field operations for Liberty Mutual’s car-and-home insurance businesses, said more than 500 adjusters are available to deploy to Florida in coming days.

Triple Threat

Irma’s pass over Florida is expected to generate storm surges along the state’s west coast and dump more than 10 inches of rain in some parts, causing significant flooding. Additionally, the potential for hurricane-force* winds remained as of Sunday evening.

Expected rainfall

of 10 inches or

more

2 p.m. Monday

10% or greater

chance for

hurricane winds

Tallahassee

Jacksonville

Rivers

Irma’s

projected

path

Orlando

Tampa

Palm Bay

2 a.m. Monday

Potential storm

surge flooding

through Wednesday

5 p.m. Sunday

Miami

1 foot

3 feet

6 feet

9 feet

Expected rainfall of 10 inches or more

10% or greater chance for hurricane winds

Rivers

2 p.m. Monday

Tallahassee

Jacksonville

Irma’s

projected

path

Orlando

Palm Bay

Tampa

2 a.m. Monday

5 p.m. Sunday

Miami

Potential storm

surge flooding

through Wednesday

9 ft.

6 ft.

3 ft.

1 ft.

*75 mph or faster

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

“The condition of Florida is the biggest obstacle” to getting them in place, Ms. Bass said, referring to the post-storm mess.

Many Floridians felt relieved to have dodged the kind of widespread loss that Hurricane Harvey wrought on Texas, where massive evacuations were needed to rescue people from flooding that sometimes left only rooftops peeking above newfound lakes.

“I thought we would be underwater or my roof would be gone,” said Debra Rommel, a 65-year-old in Punta Gorda, a small west-coast city devastated by Hurricane Charley 13 years ago. Irma’s floodwaters and wind left a mark, but Ms. Rommel’s home came through unscathed. “We wound up making out like bandits,” she said.

The governor, who has a home down the coast in Naples, also said that part of the coast avoided the worst flooding fears. Mayor Bill Barnett said the same after returning home from sheltering in a hotel. “We can count our blessings,” he said.

In Miami-Dade County, where authorities ordered widespread evacuations amid fears of a direct Irma hit, cities were cleaning up debris under a warm sun. Floodwaters from Biscayne Bay receded from Miami’s Brickell financial district, leaving pavement caked with mud and small pools of water.

Downed lampposts, trees and street signs carpeted nearby South Beach, but there was little evidence of damage to the hotels, condo towers and bars filling the chic tourist haven at the tip of Miami Beach. At the News Café on Ocean Drive, managing partner Tony Magaldi and some employees worked to get the bar ready to open on Tuesday.

Beyond the sand and dirt coating the sidewalk and a ripped awning, the establishment, already a veteran of Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Wilma, appeared little worse for wear.

“We have a nice clean-up to do, and we’re back in business,” said Mr. Magaldi.

—Arian Campo-Flores, Valerie Bauerlein, Leslie Scism and Melanie Evans contributed to this article.

Write to Cameron McWhirter at cameron.mcwhirter@wsj.com, Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com and Scott Calvert at scott.calvert@wsj.com