The death toll caused by the deadly Hurricane Ian in the United States has reached double digits sd rescue teams continue to search through scores of wreckage looking for survivors, Florida officials said.
The federal and local responders have performed more than 700 rescues thus far and reached 3,000 people who sheltered in place throughout the massive storm and continue to rescue those trapped by severe flooding.
American Red Cross said that “Hurricane Ian may be one of the largest natural disasters ever to hit Florida.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described it as a “500-year flood event.” In a news conference, he said: “We knew there would be flooding, but to have more standing water 200-plus miles away is saying something.”
Some 1.6 million people are still without power mostly in southwest Florida, which was hit the hardest.
The catastrophic storm moved east into the Atlantic Ocean Thursday and made landfall in South Carolina over Georgetown on Friday afternoon.
Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane and unleashed winds of 150 mph, hit South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane and was expected to bring heavy winds and life-threatening storm along the North and South Carolina coasts, the National Hurricane Center warned. Ian made landfall near Georgetown, South Carolina, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph.
More than 330,000 people were without power across the Carolinas on Friday as Hurricane Ian made landfall, according to PowerOutage.
U.S. President Joe Biden ordered federal assistance to Florida and South Carolina. “We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction. It’s likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history,” he said. “It’s going to take months, years to rebuild.”