9:55

PM EDT October 8, 2016 Jordan Ferrell

A ermath of Hurricane Matthew

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The damage from the worst storm to hit the
First Coast in many years is being seen in person for the rst time
today, as residents and business owners alike make their way back to
coastal areas.

Hurricane Matthew's destructive forces hit Duval County the hardest

along the coastlines, where storm surge from the Atlantic Ocean
overtook the dunes and extended inland as far as 3rd Street in
Jacksonville Beach.

Trees, street signs and power lines went down all across Duval County
as Hurricane Matthew trudged up the coast on Friday.

Two toppled trees here on Sanctuary Way South in Jacksonville Beach.

Incredibly close to homes. @FCN2go @wusa9 #HurricaneMatthew

The rst storm-related casualty on the First Coast came at around 3

p.m. on Friday, when a woman was crushed in Crescent City, Fla. Both
the woman and a man were inside of a camper sometime before 3 p.m.
when a tree fell on top of them. The man only su ered minor injuries.
‏@westhousephoto: @FCN2go tons of huge downed trees ON
power lines o hogan road side streets and neighborhoods

As of 4 p.m. on Saturday, over 169,000 JEA customers across

Jacksonville remained without power. According to JEA
representatives, line crews are working around the clock to restore
power as quickly and as safely as possible. Due to the high number of
outages and the signi cant damage done to the electrical grid,
restoration times are loose estimates.

"The default times indicated on the map are based on normal storm
conditions," JEA said in a press release that was sent out at 6 a.m. on
Friday. "Customers should plan for power to be out for multiple days."

As power outages rapidly increased in the Jacksonville area, more and

more residents turned to the use of gasoline powered generators to
substitute the need for electricity. At approximately 8:30 p.m. on
Friday, eight people on the Southside of Jacksonville were hospitalized
for carbon monoxide poisoning due to running a generator too close to
where they were staying.

The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department later released that a total
of 14 people in Duval County had su ered carbon monoxide poisoning
over the course of Friday.

The Jacksonville Beach Fishing Pier also sustained signi cant damage
from Hurricane Matthew. Large portions of the 1,320-foot pier were
lost as waves crashed into the iconic beach facet late Friday afternoon.
Wooden planks all along the pier were torn o as the storm surge
increased. The pier is signi cantly shorter now, as close to one-fourth
is missing from the end.

The damage seen at the now tattered pier is a testament of just how
severe conditions were at the beaches in Duval County. The pier was
built with storm damage in mind, as the previous one was destroyed in
1999 by Hurricane Floyd.

Further north, parts of Huguenot Memorial Park were rendered

impassable, as the St. Johns River storm surge ran over the roads,
crumbling asphalt in the process.

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