Students from Pennsylvania studying in Florida ride out Hurricane Idalia as it moves up coast

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (WPVI) -- As Hurricane Idalia moved through Florida on Wednesday, college students from the Philadelphia area took shelter in their dorms and apartments.

Idalia is now the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend region since 1896.

The storm made landfall Wednesday morning about 75 miles from Florida State University, where Rebecca Worley, from Bristol, Pennsylvania, is a student.

"It's a little crazy transition from way up north, where we didn't have as much rainfall and stuff in the past week, to going straight to here and have like one day of classes and everything gets shut down," Worley told Action News.

She rode out of the storm with her roommate, Summer Trolli, a senior at Florida State who is from Levittown.

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"The gusts were really bad. I walked out here and it was just down pouring. The trees, you could see everything swaying back and forth," recalled Trolli.

Classes at Florida State University and nearby Florida A&M University (FAMU) have been canceled through Friday.

Deandré Smith, who grew up in South Philadelphia, is getting his doctorate at FAMU. He lives about five minutes from the campus.

"From 3 a.m. to 8:30, we saw a lot of rain. But it kind of simmered down by 10 o'clock," said Smith.

Ahead of the storm, the students said there was a lot of traffic leaving the area. They also said the gas stations and grocery stores were packed.

Idalia has led to widespread damage in Florida, where hundreds of thousands of people have lost power.

"It's definitely devastating for those areas, especially the coast with the storm surges," Trolli said.