A massive search and rescue effort continues in Florida after Hurricane Ian, which cut a swathe of destruction across the US state. At least 10 people have died in the state, but officials fear the confirmed toll could rise considerably.
Joe Biden has warned the category one storm could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history, with a “substantial loss of life”.
Ian is now moving inland and heading towards North and South Carolina. A blackout is still affecting some 2.2 million Florida homes and businesses.
The flood waters have been so severe they have trapped some people in their homes, officials said, with the National Guard going door to door in the city of Orlando to rescue those stranded.
The 10 deaths that have been confirmed were all in southwest Charlotte County, which saw intense winds.
Joseph Tiseo, a local commissioner, told the BBC the area had a “tremendous wind event that lasted for 12 hours straight… it was brutal”. He said it was not yet clear how many deaths directly resulted from the hurricane.
A bit further south, Lee County took the brunt of the storm surge.
The state’s Governor Ron DeSantis told a news conference Thursday evening that the damage in Fort Myers, a harbourside city, was “almost indescribable”.
“To see a house just sitting in the middle of Estero Bay must have gotten picked up, flown because of the massive wind speed and the storm surge and deposited in a body of water,” he said.
“I would say the most significant damage I saw was on Ford Myers Beach; some homes were wiped out, some were just concrete slabs.”
One woman who lost her home said the experience is “numbing” and has her feeling “overwhelmed”.
“It’s not my first hurricane, but it’s my first total loss,” Karen, who lives on San Carlos Island in Fort Myers, told Reuters.
Some residents had to swim out of their homes.
A woman in Fort Myers, who swam to safety when her ground-floor apartment began to flood, said when she returned home, she “had to wait about five minutes for all the floodwaters to come out”.
And at the Sun Seekers mobile home park in North Fort Myers, residents recounted their terror as they tried to protect themselves with blankets.
“It was terrifying because you’re helpless”, one of the residents, Kim, said. “We had no [phone] service to call anyone, but no one would have come anyway.”
At the governor’s briefing, Kevin Guthrie, director at the Florida Division of Emergency Management, warned about “indirect deaths” – the fatalities that can happen after a storm system has passed.
He warned homeowners to watch out for power lines mixed in trees and said no one should be tinkering with generators and chainsaws or climbing ladders without proper training.
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