CNN
—
Volusia County on the Atlantic coast of Florida faces the continued threat of flooding more than a week after Hurricane Ian ripped via the state.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who toured the county Friday, stated inland areas nonetheless have a lot of standing water that doesn’t have wherever to go.
Officials are monitoring areas alongside the St. Johns River, Volusia County Emergency Manager Jim Judge stated.
“We’ve been delivering thousands of sandbags almost every day out to those areas to help those folks,” Judge stated.
According to the National Weather Service, a gauge on the river near Astor was at 4.38 toes, about 2 toes over flood stage, on Friday.
“Historic rainfall from Hurricane Ian will cause levels along the Saint Johns River to remain high as rainfall drains into the basin,” the climate service stated in a flood warning. “River levels at Astor are forecast to tick back up to 4.5 ft this weekend and will remain in Major flood stage for the foreseeable future. Interests along the river will continue to see major flood impacts through next week.”
Hurricane Ian introduced roughly $263 million price of injury to date to Volusia County from the coast to St. Johns River, Judge stated.
“We estimate about 6,000 homes have been inundated, 1,000 businesses, hotels and motels damaged. We have about 1,000 homes along the St Johns that are in danger of flooding,” he stated.
DeSantis instructed reporters that as of midday Friday, each county within the state had energy for not less than 80% of its prospects and crews continued to work on bringing it again to those that don’t.
“We’re down to the – basically except for some pockets in Lake County, you know, people are going to have power unless their home was damaged and they can’t receive power or unless you have a total restoration of the system, unfortunately, like we have in a couple places and particularly these barrier islands,” the governor stated.
Close to 87,000 prospects within the state are with out energy as of Friday night time, with more than 66,000 properties and enterprise in Lee County at nighttime, according to PowerOutage.us.
A complete of 45 million bottles of water and a couple of.5 million kilos of ice have been distributed all through damage-stricken areas, DeSantis stated.
“We’ve now cleared 5,200 miles of roadway, and there have been 2,507 bridges that have been inspected and reopened, and many of those were done very quickly after the storm and so that just keeps traffic flowing and keeps everything going,” he stated.
DeSantis stated that he and his spouse, Casey, are enlisting assist from the non-public sector and charitable teams for a fund that can assist victims of Ian who could not be capable of be helped by authorities or state packages.
“We’re looking at Lee County, they have four schools that are likely going to be total losses, and so that’s going to be a lot of kids, but then you have teachers that have lost homes,” he stated. “So, there’s a whole big, big need, I think, and I think that that fund is going to make a really big difference,”
Floridians have been impressively resilient, he stated.
“There are times when you have to face difficult circumstances,” he added. “You just got to get back up. You got to fight on, and that’s what people in Florida are doing, and so I thank them for really providing great spirit, great determination, and we’ll end up getting through this much stronger.”
Hurricane Ian made landfall September 28 close to Cayo Costa in southwestern Florida as a robust Category 4 storm. It grew to become a tropical storm because it crossed the peninsula and moved into the Atlantic. As it headed north, it strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane and made one other landfall, in South Carolina.
At least 125 folks died as a result of of Ian, officers stated – 120 of them in Florida and 5 in North Carolina. The loss of life toll was revised down Friday after the medical expert in Lee County reclassified some deaths as non-storm-related, in keeping with Sheriff Carmine Marceno.
