Partly cloudy skies. High 83F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Partly cloudy skies. Low 74F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.

Comparatively speaking, Key Biscayne fared quite well with Hurricane Ian's long-range wrath. In fact, so well, that the Village will be back in business Thursday morning.

"We were very fortunate compared to the rest of the state," Police Chief Frank Sousa said. "Overall, it was a good exercise to show that our plans are in place, and we were able to execute them."

However, one issue the Village faced Wednesday was the intermittent loss of power to the Fire-Rescue Department.

"We were running on generator power," said Fire Chief Eric Lang, whose crew responded to several "power-related emergencies,” including downed wires, which were arcing and sparking, and a blown transformer at the Le Phare condo complex.

Michele Estevez, President of Michele & Associates who manages Le Phare, praised both the Key Biscayne Fire and Rescue Department and FPL.

“A tree branch hit the Phase 1 and Phase 2 power lines, and when they made contact and touched each other, it sent power back to the transformer causing it to explode and the oil caught fire,” Estevez told Islander News.

“Residents heard the explosion and a couple guys went out, saw the flames, and called 911. Thanks to the rapid response of our Fire Department, fire was extinguished, and cars were spared from the fire spreading.”

"The biggest issue today was dealing with power outages," Lang said. "Some residents were reporting (loss) since last night, so we were working closely with FPL to assure progress was being made. ... We have some follow-up to do with FPL because we want to make sure why some (areas) had outages."

Lang said 97% of the more than 2,000 outages had been taken care of by 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Hurricane Ian, as of the 8 p.m. Wednesday track, had winds of 115 mph and was moving NNE at just 8 mph, headed in the vicinity of southern Orlando. Satellite image from the NOOA showed the entire Florida peninsula was at one point covered by Ian.  

Rainfall wasn't much of a factor Wednesday on Key Biscayne, with the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science reporting about a half-inch of rain.

"Today's been dry as far as rainfall as air gets punched on the backside of the hurricane," said Shawn Bhatti, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Miami, "We're still under a Flood Watch, so I don't want to jinx it."

The highest sustained winds peaked at 49 mph around noon, with a 55-mph gust on Key Biscayne.

"There was minor coastal flooding with the high tide cycle and maybe some mild beach erosion, but nothing like the southwest coast of Florida was facing," Bhatti said.

It will be "business as usual" in the Village on Thursday morning. Among the services opening:

- Village Hall and administrative services will reopen under normal operating hours

- Key Biscayne Community Center will reopen at 8 a.m.

- Great Waste Trash Pick-up will take place according to the usual Thursday schedule.

- Freebee will be back in service from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

"We're very grateful we weren't impacted harder," Lang said. "I feel we were ready, we responded, under the leadership of the Village Manager, Steve Williamson, and to all the departments ... a big shout-out to Public Works -- we've got a great team. I'm happy with our response."

Continue to follow the latest news and advisories by visiting the National Hurricane Center website, Weather.gov and following local news channels.

For the 8 p.m. advisory on Ian from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, click here.