Days after Hurricane Ian ripped through Florida, wiping out neighborhoods and turning roads into rivers, rescue crews searching for survivors are reporting more deaths as recovery efforts continue.
Officials confirmed that Ian killed at least 76 people in Florida after it made landfall last week as a Category 4 storm, decimating coastal towns, flooding homes, collapsing roofs, tossing boats into buildings and floating cars. Four other people died in storm-related incidents as Ian made landfall in North Carolina.
More than 1,600 people have been rescued from Hurricane Ian’s path in parts of southwest and central Florida since last week, Gov. Ron DeSandis’ office said Sunday.
Now, as blue skies return, Floridians who took shelter while the hurricane raged have emerged to find unrecognized communities and face the daunting task of rebuilding. Many of them do not have electricity or clean drinking water.
More than 689,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Florida were without power as of Sunday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. Many are without clean tap water, with more than 100 boil water alerts in places around the state, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.
In Naples, Hank DeWolf’s 4,000-pound dock was carried through an apartment complex by the powerful hurricane and landed in his neighbor’s yard. And the water brought someone’s car into his yard. He doesn’t know who it belongs to or how to remove it.
As crews in Naples comb through the debris to make sure no one is still trapped, residents are experiencing an “emotional rollercoaster” as they face the massive task of cleaning up and restoring the city, Jay Boodheshwar, director of the city of Naples. .
“People need to take care of their emotional and mental health, because we’re really going to have to work together on that,” Boodheshwar admitted.
Naples received a record storm surge when the hurricane sent ocean waters flooding the city’s streets and tearing up its infrastructure.
“The amount of water we got and the height of the overflow affected a lot of the infrastructure,” Boodheshwar explained. “So there are transformers that are fried. It’s not just changing lines. There are things that may need to be replaced.”
Similar scenes are played out in other communities. Hurricane Ian — expected to be the costliest storm in Florida history — devastated neighborhoods from the state’s west coast to inland cities like Orlando.
In some cases, emergency workers searching for signs of life are dealing with the loss of their home at the same time.
“Some of the kids on Pine Island, they’ve lost everything, but they’re doing the best they can,” said emergency physician Dr. Ben Abo, who was preparing to join first responders on a rescue mission Sunday near decimated Sanibel Island and Pine Island. .
And the flooding isn’t over yet.
Seminole County continues to experience significant flooding in some neighborhoods, with families being rescued from waist-deep water over the weekend.
Days after the hurricane left, flooding continues to rise in areas near the St. Johns, Lake Monroe and Lake Harney, with an additional 100 homes damaged by flooding in the past 24 hours, Seminole County emergency management officials told CNN’s WESH.
FEMA alone cannot rebuild and provide assistance to all communities affected by Hurricane Ian, former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate told CNN on Sunday. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, otherwise known as HUD, can provide grants to communities affected by hurricanes and other natural disasters to help people get back on their feet, Fugate added.
“It’s not just the Florida coast that’s been affected. We have impacts all the way through Orlando, all the way up the East Coast. Places like St. Augustine have had catastrophic flooding,” Fugate pointed out.
Hurricane Ian wiped out parts of the Sanibel Causeway, which connects Sanibel Island to the mainland, stranding residents as their only connection became impassable.
Responders went door to door searching properties for anyone who may need to evacuate.
About 400 people were evacuated from Sanibel Island over the weekend, City Manager Dana Souza said Sunday night, adding that authorities will begin to focus on providing medical services to people who choose to remain on the island, rather than evacuations. .
Abo told CNN he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the death toll rises significantly as rescue and recovery efforts continue on Sanimel Island.
US Coast Guard Commander Vice Admiral Brendan McPherson offered a stark assessment of the damage on Sanibel Island.
“This area will be down for some time,” McPherson noted. “It was hit very hard, it doesn’t have water, it doesn’t have the basic infrastructure.”
Amy Lynn was at her friend’s home on Sanibel Island when Ian hit, forcing her to hide in a closet with seven dogs, praying and holding the door shut as the hurricane roared outside.
When he came outside, the house was badly damaged, with walls collapsing, video showed.
“I prayed for 6 solid hours and made peace that it was my time to leave. It was not. God is good. We made it out alive,” Lynn wrote on Facebook. “We lost everything. My car is gone. I haven’t seen my house in Sanibel, I’m told it’s destroyed.”
Lynn said she was grateful to be alive, but wrote: “This is so much more than devastating. The heart of the swfl coast has been changed forever.”
Many of the deaths associated with Ian – 42 deaths – have been reported in southwest Florida’s Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Sanibel Island.
Lee County officials are facing criticism for not ordering the first mandatory evacuations before Ian made landfall, despite an emergency plan suggesting evacuations should have happened sooner.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis said Lee County officials acted appropriately when they issued their first mandatory evacuations Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Hurricane Ian made landfall and a day after several neighboring counties issued their orders.
Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane also defended the timing of the orders, calling reports of a possible delay in issuing a mandatory evacuation “inaccurate.”
“Once we saw the pattern shift northeast, we did exactly what we could to encourage people to evacuate,” Ruane said Sunday.
Ruan added that people “became complacent” and many did not move to shelters.
“I think the most important thing for most people to understand is that we opened 15 shelters. During Irma there were 60,000 people in our shelters. There are 4,000 people in shelters right now,” Ruane said.
In addition to the 42 deaths in Lee County, Hurricane Ian also contributed to the deaths of 12 people in Charlotte County, eight in Collier County, five in Volusia County, three in Sarasota County, two in Manatee County and one in Polk. Lake, Hendry and Hillsborough counties, officials said.
About 65 percent of all power outages in Florida from the storm had been restored by early Sunday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
But some residents and businesses in storm-ravaged counties may not be back on the grid for “weeks or months” because of structural damage caused by the hurricane, said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Company.
In Cape Coral, just southwest of Fort Myers, 98 percent of the city’s power structure is “gone” and will need a complete rebuild, Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Ryan Lamb told CNN’s Jim Acosta.
Florida is also working with Elon Musk and the Starlink satellite to help restore communications in the state, according to DeSantis. “They’re putting these Starlink satellites in place to provide good coverage in Southwest Florida and other affected areas,” DeSantis said.
