Residents of Florida's Upper Keys who evacuated during Hurricane Irma were allowed to start returning to their homes Wednesday morning, but federal officials warned them it wouldn't necessarily be pretty. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said that 90 percent of the homes in the Florida Keys were damaged and 25 percent of homes were destroyed by the hurricane, which made landfall Sunday morning on Cudjoe Key.
Officials from Monroe County, which encompasses the Keys and the Everglades, were a little more optimistic. "Things look real damaged from the air, but when you clear the trees and all the debris, it's not much damage to the houses," said Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers in a statement Tuesday night. Certainly it looks bad from the air, as seen in this helicopter footage of Big Pine Key, due east of Cudjoe Key.
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