Florida death toll grows as rescuers search for Ian survivors

In the midst of the devastation from what was as soon as Hurricane Ian, rescuers desperately searched for survivors on Florida’s west coast and energy started to be restored to many affected by the storm.

The present death toll in Florida sits at 21, with many extra anticipated. As many as 10,000 individuals in southwest Florida are unaccounted for. In TikTok movies and Facebook posts, nervous households shared their desperate pleas and strangers answered their calls, even as native officers urged individuals to make use of official channels for assist.

[ RELATED: In Hurricane Ian’s wake, worried families crowdsource rescue efforts ]

At a news convention in Tallahassee, state emergency administration director Kevin Guthrie described a ugly scene in Lee County the place Ian smashed into the coast on Thursday with 150 mph winds and a large storm surge of 10 ft or extra.

“The water up over the rooftop, and we had a Coast Guard rescue swimmer swim down into it, and he could identify what appeared to be human remains,” he mentioned. “We want to be transparent, but we just don’t know that number.”

Rescue crews piloted boats and waded by streets that grew to become rivers to save lots of 1000’s of individuals trapped amid flooded properties and shattered buildings.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned Friday that crews had gone door-to-door to greater than 3,000 properties within the hardest-hit areas.

“There’s really been a Herculean effort,” he mentioned.

Earlier this week, President Joe Biden mentioned Ian “could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida history,” accountable for a “substantial loss of life.”

In Volusia County, one man fell and drowned in rising flood waters in his own residence, whereas one other drowned in a close-by canal, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office reported.

The two who died in Sarasota had been each aged residents who relied on oxygen machines that misplaced energy through the storm, in accordance with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.

In North Fort Myers, one other man who relied on oxygen was narrowly saved when his neighbors used an extension wire to attach his oxygen machine to a neighbor’s generator, the New York Times reported.

Biden mentioned Friday he was directing “every possible action be taken to save lives and get help to survivors … I just want the people of Florida to know, we see what you’re going through and we’re with you.”

In an effort to assist households talk with family members, telecom corporations are permitting different networks’ prospects to roam on their cell towers, DeSantis mentioned Friday.

More than 20,000 individuals throughout the state had been in shelters as of Friday.

[ RELATED: ‘No reason to come … there’s nothing here.’ Florida residents in shock at devastation left in Hurricane Ian’s wake ]

On Friday evening, the Florida Department of Transportation closed Interstate 75 in each instructions from North Port (Toledo Blade Boulevard) to Englewood (Jacaranda Boulevard) after rising water from the Myakka River made the freeway not secure for journey. “Motorists planning on traveling on I-75 to southwest Florida should seek an alternative route,” transportation officers mentioned.

Ian left a broad swath of destruction in Florida, flooding areas from its west to east coasts, tearing properties from their slabs, demolishing beachfront companies and leaving greater than 2.5 million properties and companies with out energy. Thousands of utility employees, some from different states, are working to convey again electrical energy.

Statewide, 85% of Floridians had energy; nonetheless, within the hard-hit counties of Lee, Charlotte, Collier and Sarasota, greater than half of properties and companies remained without electricity, DeSantis mentioned Friday evening.

“The biggest challenge with power restoration is going to be in those areas that bore the brunt of the Category 4 impact,” he mentioned. “That’s going to be more than just connecting a powerline back to a pole.”

[ RELATED: Friday was FPL’s first full day of restoration work ]

Thirteen Florida counties have been authorized for federal help, and extra are anticipated, Deanne Criswell Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency mentioned Friday: “We are going to continue to be here to support the governor.”

Ian has possible brought on “well over $100 billion’’ in damage, including $63 billion in privately insured losses, according to the disaster modeling firm Karen Clark & Company, which regularly issues flash catastrophe estimates. If those numbers are borne out, that would make Ian at least the fourth costliest hurricane in U.S. history.

Businesses near Fort Myers Beach were completely razed, leaving twisted debris. Broken docks floated at odd angles beside damaged boats. Fires smoldered on lots where houses once stood.

“I don’t know how anyone could have survived in there,” William Goodison mentioned amid the wreckage of a cellular residence park the place he’d lived for 11 years. Goodison mentioned he rode out the storm at his son’s home inland.

[ RELATED: A couple tried to flee Fort Myers Beach. One didn’t make it. ]

The hurricane tore by the park of about 60 properties, leaving many destroyed or mangled past restore, together with Goodison’s. Wading by waist-deep water, Goodison and his son wheeled two trash cans containing what little he may salvage — a transportable air conditioner, some instruments and a baseball bat.

The highway into Fort Myers Beach was affected by damaged bushes, boat trailers and different particles. Cars had been deserted within the highway, having stalled when the storm surge flooded their engines.

Firefighters rescued dozens of individuals from barrier islands close to Fort Myers on Thursday and had been again looking for victims on Friday, Chief Ray Jadallah of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue mentioned.

“You see a house totally washed out and it’s just nothing but a concrete slab on Fort Myers beach,” DeSantis mentioned Friday morning. “You just pray to God that no one was in that.”

The governor went to Pine Island on Friday and vowed to revive the destroyed bridge that hyperlinks it to the mainland. The bridge to just about wiped-out Sanibel island was additionally destroyed.

Lee County is totally with out water as a consequence of a major break, DeSantis mentioned Friday. The state is transporting 1.2 million gallons of water from Lakeland to Fort Myers to help hospitals there that haven’t any potable water.

Without potable water, Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida was compelled to evacuate premature and ill babies to kids’s hospitals in South Florida. The infants arrived by air ambulances and floor autos Friday, mentioned Ronald Ford, chief medical officer of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood.

Ian had made landfall on the Florida mainland at 4:35 p.m. Wednesday simply south of Punta Gorda, coming ashore with 145 mph winds, the National Hurricane Center mentioned. The storm beforehand made landfall on the island of Cayo Costa off Fort Myers.

Ian made one other landfall as a Category 1 storm on the coast of South Carolina on Friday afternoon. As of 11 p.m., the post-tropical cyclone was about 60 miles south-southeast of Greensboro, N.C., transferring north at 15 mph, with peak winds that decreased to 50 mph and tropical-storm-force winds that stretch as much as 195 miles from the middle.

The post-tropical cyclone will transfer farther inland throughout central North Carolina and Virginia into Saturday. It is forecast to dissipate by Sunday.

The storm left many areas of Charleston’s downtown peninsula underneath water. It additionally washed method elements of 4 piers alongside the coast, together with two at Myrtle Beach.

After the heaviest of the rainfall blew by Charleston, S.C., Will Shalosky examined a big elm tree in entrance of his home that had fallen throughout his downtown avenue. He famous the harm may have been a lot worse.

“If this tree has fallen a different way, it would be in our house,” Shalosky mentioned. “It’s pretty scary, pretty jarring.”

[ RELATED: Estimates of Ian’s insured losses range widely from $30 billion to $50 billion. But the actual counting has just begun. ]

On Friday, Central Florida additionally was digging out after Ian introduced heavy rainfall and flooding throughout the area. Rivers overflowed onto main streets. Some our bodies of water, like Shingle Creek close to Kissimmee, broke information, reaching the highest levels ever reported.

Flooding is anticipated to proceed throughout Central Florida into subsequent week, the National Hurricane Center mentioned Friday.

Parts of east central Florida, such as New Smyrna Beach, acquired as much as 20 inches of accrued rainfall between Tuesday and Friday. Much of Orlando had acquired over 14 inches by Thursday, metropolis officers mentioned in a news convention.

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In the cities of Kissimmee and New Smyrna Beach, residents and native media retailers shared photos and movies of main streets flooded with water and automobiles keeling into puddles of unknown depths.

In South Florida, a lot of the destruction occurred Tuesday evening, when Ian spawned not less than two tornadoes in Broward County and one in Palm Beach County, the National Weather Service mentioned. A twister close to Kings Point, near Delray Beach, toppled bushes, wrecked automobiles, broken flats, and displaced 35 individuals.

On Friday evening, swells generated by Ian and a close-by frontal system had been affecting the east coast of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and the northwestern Bahamas with the potential to trigger life-threatening surf and rip present circumstances.

A tropical wave off the African coast has a 70% probability of creating within the subsequent 5 days, the hurricane heart mentioned, forming a tropical despair early subsequent week as the system strikes westward to west-northwestward over the japanese tropical Atlantic.

The subsequent named storm to type could be Julia.

Hurricane season ends Nov. 30.

Sun Sentinel workers writers Keven Lerner and Rafael Omeda contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press was used on this report.