Hurricane Incident Commander in North Miami Beach Gives Irma Recovery Update

09/11/2017 04:24 pm EDT

Hurricane Irma has almost finished leaving a path of destruction across Florida, making landfall in the state over the weekend before turning inland and heading for Georgia.

Now that the storm has mostly passed, recovery efforts are beginning to get underway, with the hurricane incident commander speaking to CNN to share an update on how the state is coping.

"Our first priority is to get our boots back on the ground," said Major Richard Rand, sharing that teams of officers are currently out performing damage assessments.

"We had a very busy afternoon," he said. "We've saved a couple of lives...we have a large amount of power lines down, we have a lot of standing water."

Rand added that he is encouraging residents to stay indoors.

"One of the most dangerous times is after a major storm like this passes," he explained. "Traffic lights are out, people want to get out of their house and they want to see what's going on. We're really telling people to please stay inside and let first responders do our job."

After tearing through Florida, Irma has left damaged homes, fallen trees and flooding in its wake, with the damage estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

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