The death toll from Hurricane Ian climbed past 80 on Sunday. Hundreds of people have been rescued as emergency workers sifted through homes and buildings inundated with water or completely washed away. The death toll was expected to keep rising as floodwaters receded and as search teams reached areas initially cut off from the outside world.
At least 85 storm-related deaths have been confirmed since Ian crashed ashore Florida’s Gulf Coast with catastrophic force on Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane, Reuters reported.
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Except four, all of the fatalities have been reported from Florida, with 42 tallied by the sheriff’s office in coastal Lee County, which bore the brunt of the storm when it made landfall. Thirty nine other deaths were reported by officials in four neighboring counties.
Questions are being raised about whether officials in Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Cape Coral and is on the Gulf Coast, mandated evacuations in time.
Cecil Pendergrass, chairman of the county’s board of commissioners, said on Sunday that once the county was forecast to be in the cone, or the probable track of the hurricane’s center, evacuation orders were given. Even then, some people chose to ride the storm out, Pendergrass said.
“I respect their choices,” he said at a press conference. “But I’m sure a lot of them regret it now.”
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit Florida on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement on Saturday. They will visit Puerto Rico on Monday, where hundreds of thousands of people were still without power two weeks after Hurricane Fiona hit the island.
Meanwhile, Cubans are waiting for power to be restored after Ian knocked out electricity to the whole country of 11 million people and flattened homes.
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North Carolina authorities said at least four people had been killed there. No deaths were immediately reported in South Carolina, where Ian made another US landfall on Friday.
Ian has diminished into an ever-weakening post-tropical cyclone.
Officials said some of the heaviest damage was inflicted by wind-driven ocean surf that raged into seaside communities and washed buildings away.
Satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed beach cottages and a motel that lined the shores of Florida’s Sanibel Island had been demolished by storm surges. Surveys from the ground showed that the barrier island, a popular tourist getaway that was home to some 6,000, was devastated.
(With inputs from agencies)
