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Tag: Hurricane Ian
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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers helps Hurricane Ian victims with
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers helps Hurricane Ian victims with “Operation Blue Roof” – CBS News
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Ian deals blow to Florida’s teetering insurance sector
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Daniel Kelly and his wife bought a 1977 doublewide mobile home in May for about $83,000 at Tropicana Sands, a community for people 55 and older in Fort Myers, Florida. But he ran into roadblocks when he tried to insure it.
Managers at Tropicana Sands told him he likely wouldn’t be able to find a carrier who would offer a policy because the home was too old. He said he checked with a Florida-based insurance agent who searched and couldn’t find anything.
“I can insure a 1940s car, why can’t I insure this?” Kelly said.
Kelly was lucky that his trailer was largely spared by Hurricane Ian aside from some flood damage. But for many Floridians whose homes were destroyed, they now face the arduous task of rebuilding without insurance or paying even steeper prices in an insurance market that was already struggling. Wind and storm-surge losses from the hurricane could reach between $28 billion and $47 billion, making it Florida’s costliest storm since Hurricane Andrew made landfall in 1992, according to the property analytics firm CoreLogic.
Even before Ian, Florida’s home insurance market was dealing with billions of dollars in losses from a string of natural disasters, rampant litigation and increasing fraud. The difficult environment has put many insurers out of business and caused others to raise their prices or tighten their restrictions, making it harder for Floridians to obtain insurance.
Those who do manage to insure their homes are seeing costs increase exponentially. Even before Hurricane Ian, the annual cost of an average Florida homeowners insurance policy was expected to reach $4,231 in 2022, nearly three times the U.S. average of $1,544.
“They are paying more for less coverage,” said Florida’s Insurance Consumer Advocate Tasha Carter. “It puts consumers in dire circumstances.”
The costs have gotten so high that some homeowners have forgone coverage altogether. About 12% of Florida homeowners don’t have property insurance — or more than double the U.S. average of 5% — according to the Insurance Information Institute, a research organization funded by the insurance industry.
Florida’s insurance industry has seen two straight years of net underwriting losses exceeding $1 billion each year. A string of property insurers, including six so far this year, have become insolvent, while others are leaving the state.
As of July, 27 Florida insurers were on a state watchlist for their precarious financial situation; Mark Friedlander, the head of communications for the Insurance Information Institute, expects Hurricane Ian will cause at least some of those to tip into insolvency.
The insurance industry says overzealous litigation is partly to blame. Loopholes in Florida law, including fee multipliers that allow attorneys to collect higher fees for property insurance cases, have made Florida an excessively litigious state, Friedlander said.
Florida currently averages about 100,000 lawsuits over homeowners’ insurance claims per year, he said. That compares to just 3,600 in California, which has almost double Florida’s population.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation said the state accounts for 76% of the nation’s homeowners’ insurance claims lawsuits but just 9% of all homeowners insurance claims.
“Plaintiff attorneys in Florida have historically found ways of circumventing any efforts at reining in legal system abuses, making it likely that ongoing reforms will be needed to further stabilize the insurance marketplace,” said Logan McFaddin of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
But Amy Boggs, the property section chair for the Florida Justice Association — a group that represents attorneys — said the insurance industry is also at fault for refusing to pay out claims. Boggs said homeowners are driven to attorneys “as a last resort.”
“No policyholder wants to be embroiled in years of litigation just to get their homes rebuilt,” she said. “They come to attorneys when their insurance company underpays their claim and they can’t rebuild.”
Rampant fraud — particularly among roofing contractors — has also added to costs. Regulators say it’s common for contractors to go door-to-door offering to cover homeowners’ insurance deductible in exchange for submitting a full roof replacement claim to their property insurance company, claiming damage from storms.
Things have gotten so bad with insurance that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special session in May to address the issues. New laws limit the rates attorneys can charge for some property insurance claims and require insurers to insure homes with older roofs — something they had stopped doing because of rising fraud claims.
The legislation also includes a $150 million fund that will offer grants to homeowners to make improvements to protect against hurricanes. But that program has yet to be launched, and experts say it will take years to reverse the damage to Florida’s insurance market.
In the meantime, the crisis has pushed more homeowners to Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer that sells home insurance for those who can’t get coverage through private insurers.
Citizens had more than 1 million active policies as of Sept. 23, before Ian hit, according to Michael Peltier, a spokesman at Citizens. In 2019, that number was roughly 420,000. He said the company had been writing 8,000 to 9,000 new policies per week, double compared with a few years ago. Citizens has $13.4 billion in reserves and predicts it will pay 225,000 claims from Ian worth a total of $3.7 billion.
Even if they have homeowners’ insurance, many Floridians could still be facing financial ruin because of flooding. Flood damage isn’t typically covered by homeowners’ insurance but can be costly; Florida’s Division of Emergency Management says 1 inch of floodwater can do $25,000 in damage.
Friedlander said just 18% of Florida homeowners carry flood insurance, either through the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program or private insurers. In some coastal areas, more than half of homeowners have flood insurance, but in inland areas — where flood waters continued to rise even after the storm had passed — it’s closer to 5%.
Kelly, whose trailer in Fort Myers was saturated in 4 feet of salt water and sewage after Hurricane Ian, could have benefitted from flood insurance. He thought he might not be able to get it because he didn’t have homeowners insurance, but that’s not the case — flood insurance is completely separate and can even be purchased by renters, experts say.
“I kinda let it lie when I originally couldn’t find someone to insure it,” he said. “It’s a costly oversight on my part.”
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Associated Press writer Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report.
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For more coverage of Hurricane Ian, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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Viewers flock to Weather Channel for Hurricane Ian coverage
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NEW YORK — The Weather Channel reached its biggest audience in five years last week when Hurricane Ian made its destructive landfall in western Florida.
The average audience of 3.4 million people last Wednesday was more than any other day for the network since Hurricane Harvey deluged Texas with record amounts of rainfall in 2017, the Nielsen company said.
The network’s peak day came despite other cable news and broadcast networks also devoting resources to the storm, and a myriad of streaming options that gave people many different ways to follow Ian and its aftermath.
For example, the free streaming service Local Now, which is owned alongside The Weather Channel by the Allen Media Group, had a record-setting day for usage last Wednesday, the company said. Through the service, people could watch local news coverage of Ian from markets in Tampa, Fort Myers and Orlando in Florida.
Allen would not give precise figures on how many people used the service.
Another new wrinkle from the Weather Channel app were screen views that allowed users to watch the storm’s progress through fixed cameras placed in Ian’s path, in Fort Myers Beach, Punta Gorda and Venice, Florida, for example.
The average consumer who used the app spent a staggering four hours there on the day the storm hit, the Weather Channel said.
Fox Weather, a streaming service that debuted a year ago, easily had its most-used day ever last Wednesday, although Fox also wouldn’t provide specific details. During three overnight hours after the storm hit, Fox News Channel simulcast the coverage on the Fox Weather stream.
NBC was the winner again during the second week of the new television season, averaging 6.1 million viewers in prime time, Nielsen said. CBS averaged 5.7 million, ABC had 4 million, Fox had 2.2 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 900,000 and Telemundo had 820,000.
ESPN was the most-watched cable network, averaging 2.15 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.12 million, MSNBC had 1.15 million, HGTV had 796,00 and CNN had 756,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.4 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5 million.
For the week of Sept. 26-Oct. 2, the 20 most-watched programs in prime time, their networks and viewerships:
1. NFL Football: Kansas City at Tampa Bay, NBC, 20.85 million.
2. “NFL Pregame Show” (Sunday), NBC, 15.74 million.
3. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 11.04 million.
4. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 10.27 million.
5. NFL Football: Dallas at N.Y. Giants, ABC, 10.18 million.
6. NFL Football: Dallas at N.Y. Giants, ESPN, 7.73 million.
7. “The Equalizer,” CBS, 7.09 million.
8. “FBI,” CBS, 7.08 million.
9. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 6.88 million.
10. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 6.73 million.
11. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 6.6 million.
12. “Ghosts,” CBS, 6.46 million.
13. “NFL Pregame Show” (Monday), ABC, 6.28 million.
14. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 6.111 million.
15. “NCIS,” CBS, 6.107 million.
16. “FBI: International,” CBS, 5.88 million.
17. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 5.87 million.
18. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 5.41 million.
19. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 5.4 million.
20. “East New York,” CBS, 5.27 million.
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This story corrects the name of Fox Weather and Local New. A previous version of this story referred to the streaming services as Fox News Weather and Local News Now.
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Son documents harrowing rescue of mom from Ian’s floodwaters
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In one photo, Johnny Lauder’s 86-year-old mother is in her Florida home, submerged nearly to her shoulders in black murky water, staring straight at the camera, mouth open.
In another, she lies just above the waterline on a table, wrapped in sheets to keep warm. In yet another, she’s being pushed through the water in a wheelchair, her rescue nearly complete.
The photos were taken after Hurricane Ian made landfall last Wednesday, bringing a powerful storm surge and 150 mph (241 kph) winds. They tell the story of Lauder’s journey to save his mother, Karen Lauder, from the home she refused to leave, despite the family’s pleading .
He sent the short videos and photos to his family, letting them know he was OK.
“That’s how I unintentionally documented the whole ordeal,” he said.
Before the storm hit, Lauder said his mother — who lost a leg and requires a wheelchair — “ kicked and screamed” and said she didn’t want to leave her home in Naples, Florida. “We didn’t evacuate because we couldn’t leave her behind,” he explained.
She did not expect the level of destruction Ian would bring. Speaking from his son’s home on Tuesday, Lauder said his mom’s house had flooded about six inches during Hurricane Irma in 2017, so she assumed a similar outcome with Ian.
Instead, Ian ravaged Florida as one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.S. and flooded more than three feet of her home, trapping her inside. She called her son for help.
“She said the water was up to her wheelchair and hitting her belly button,” Lauder said. He was sheltering at his son’s house, a half mile (0.8 km) from his mom.
Lauder, who said he has rescue diver training, dove out the window. He swam, walked, waded and kicked through water for about 45 minutes to get to her house. He said a van and a couple cars floated past him as he steered clear of sparking electric poles.
Lauder said he heard his mother screaming as he approached.
“It was a sense of terror and relief at the same time,” he said. “The terror was that I didn’t know if something was falling on her or if she was trapped and hurt. But the relief was knowing that there’s still air in her lungs.”
He put her on a table and bundled her in dry sheets from a high shelf. He worried about the sores around her body — open wounds that were dangerously susceptible to infection in the bacteria —ridden floodwater.
They waited three hours for the water to subside, so he could push her through the streets in her wheelchair. When the water was a couple feet high, he called for his 20-year-old son to join them and help push grandma to safety.
Around 1 a.m. — about 11 hours after Lauder’s mother called him for help — Lauder returned to his older son’s house with his mother and younger son in tow.
Lauder said his mom was later taken to a hospital, because she had some infections. “But they were treated, and she’s warm. She’s in a soft comfy bed. She’s good,” he added.
Cassandra Clark, Lauder’s sister-in-law in Miami, started a GoFundMe to raise money for Lauder, his mother and his sons.
“While we’re so grateful our family is physically alright, they’ve lost absolutely everything in this storm and, unfortunately, did not have any renter’s insurance,” Clark wrote.
The page raised over $17,000 as of Tuesday.
“I get choked up that all these people are helping me and they don’t even know me,” Lauder said.
He hopes that people will know now to evacuate. “My mom has changed her tone: she will be evacuating next time,” he said. “I hope people learn from others’ mistakes and not their own.”
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Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Trisha Ahmed on Twitter.
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Ian’s death toll tops 100 as Florida’s recovery begins
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Ian’s death toll tops 100 as Florida’s recovery begins – CBS News
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As Floridians recover from Ian, most homeowners in the state do so without flood insurance
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Many Florida homeowners starting the arduous recovery from Hurricane Ian will do so without the benefit of flood insurance, forcing them to either rebuild with scant resources or make hard choices about relocating.
Ian was among the most destructive storms to hit the U.S. Early estimates of residential and commercial losses range from $28 billion to $47 billion, according to property-data company CoreLogic, while other projections have put the toll at more than $60 billio. The storm’s powerful eye wall was unusually large, measuring 40 miles across, while its storm surge peaked at 12 feet.
“Since Andrew, Ian is looking most likely to be the largest loss Florida has experienced,” David Smith, senior leader of science and analytics at CoreLogic, said in a recent presentation.
Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992 and was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history until Katrina, in 2005, which demolished the Louisiana coast and the city of New Orleans.
Since 1992, Florida’s population has grown more than 60%, exposing more residents to risk. Yet less than 1 in 5 of the state’s 10 million homes has flood insurance, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Without insurance, people in flooded areas must appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Administration for direct grants, which often top out at $30,000 or $35,000 — a fraction of what they may need to rebuild or move.
The median home in Florida sells for $395,000, according to Redfin. Meanwhile, just one inch of flooding can cause $25,000 in damage, according to the National Flood Insurance Program.
Although flooding is the most common natural disaster in America, most homeowners lack flood coverage, with poorer people less likely to have insurance. The typical flood insurance policy runs around $700 a year, while the average claims payout tops $50,000, according to the most recent data from FEMA.
“Flood insurance is not equally distributed in risky areas — homeowners who are more wealthy and in Whiter areas are more likely to have coverage,” said Max Besbris, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and coauthor of a recent book on the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
“Communication failure”
Nationwide, surveys show that between a quarter and a third of Americans carry flood insurance. Those without a policy usually do so because they can’t afford it or are unaware they need it. When Besbris and fellow sociologist Anna Rhodes interviewed victims of flooding from Harvey, they found that “most people did not know their level of vulnerability,” Besbris told CBS MoneyWatch.
“They did not think that floodwaters could rise as high as they had. The last storm they had was Imelda in 1979 — that was the benchmark that people were working with,” Besbris told CBS MoneyWatch.
“This is a communication failure on the part of FEMA, local municipalities and governments, to actually tell their residents that there is an increasing risk of flooding, especially as climate change makes flooding more severe.”
Unlike car insurance, which is required by law, flood insurance is optional for most homeowners, unless they live in a FEMA-designated flood zone. But with climate change making flooding more frequent and more severe, those zones are outdated in many parts of the country.
Today, about 180,000 homes on Florida’s storm-battered Gulf Coast face a significant flood risk but sit outside FEMA’s 100-year flood zone, according to the nonprofit First Street Foundation. Statewide, that figure rises to 350,000.
Prices creeping up
Not only are few homeowners covered by flood insurance, but the numbers are headed in the wrong direction. Since the National Flood Insurance Program began raising some of its premiums last year to account for growing flood risk, hundreds of thousands of people have dropped their federally backed insurance policies.
In Florida, about 48,000 fewer households have federal flood insurance this year than in 2021, according to FEMA figures. The trend suggests that affordability remains a concern, particularly for homeowners who are poorer or live on fixed incomes, as many Floridians do.
“Making flood insurance cost more means that less advantaged people are going to stop buying coverage,” Besbris said. “When these things happen like Ian — and they will happen more and more often — whole communities, in addition to individual households, are not going to have clear pathways to recovery.”
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Hurricane Ian shakes SW Florida’s faith but can’t destroy it
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — In darkness and despair, there were flickers of light and hope, even for Jane Compton who lost her home and possessions to Hurricane Ian’s wrath. As the storm approached last week, she and her husband found sanctuary at their Baptist church, huddling with fellow parishioners through wind, rain and worry.
They prayed for the gusts to subside and for God to keep them from harm as the hurricane made landfall last Wednesday. Floodwaters swept under the pews, driving the congregation to the pulpit and further testing their faith. The intensifying storm ripped the church’s steeple away, leaving a large gap in the roof. The parishioners shuddered.
“Good Lord, please protect us,” Compton prayed, with her husband, Del, at her side.
She compared the deluge to the biblical story Noah’s Ark, saying they had no idea when the water would stop rising. When it did, there were hallelujahs.
With the storm now passed and its devastation abounding, churches across hard-hit Southwest Florida are providing a steadying force in the lives of those plunged into chaos and grief. Heartache, frustration and uncertainty now swirl in sanctuaries amid sermons about perseverance and holding on to one’s faith.
“We believe this was a blessing in disguise,” said the Rev. Robert Kasten, the Comptons’ pastor at Southwest Baptist Church, a congregation of several hundred in one of the most devastated neighborhoods of Fort Myers.
Also being tested are many of the nearly quarter million Catholics in the Diocese of Venice, which encompasses 10 counties from just south of Tampa Bay to the Everglades that bore the brunt of the hurricane. Bishop Frank Dewane has been visiting as many of the diocese’s five dozen parishes and 15 schools as possible.
“A lot of people just wanted to talk about, ‘Why is there this much suffering?’” Dewane said of parishioners he met as he celebrated weekend Mass in a church in an inundated North Port neighborhood and in the parish hall of a storm-damaged Sarasota church. “We have to go on; we’re a people of hope.”
Priests walked a fine line between holding Mass to provide comfort and not endangering older parishioners in areas with widespread lack of running water and electricity and flooded roadways. Dewane said one rescued man had kept asking about his wife, not realizing she had drowned in the storm.
Around Kasten’s church, nearby mobile home parks where many of his parishioners lived became submerged. About a fourth of his congregation suffered major damage to their dwellings, with many like the Comptons losing nearly everything. The church’s sanctuary has become temporary quarters for nearly a dozen of the newly homeless.
Most were handling things well, until the realities of tragedy hit.
“When they saw pictures, they just burst into tears,” Kasten said.
“Just the shock of knowing and seeing what you knew happened, it overwhelmed them. But they are just praising the Lord how he protected us, kept us safe,” he said.
Barbara Wasko, a retiree who is now sleeping on a lounge chair in the sanctuary, said she has faith the community will rebuild.
“We will get by,” she said. “We will make it.”
Hurricane Ian’s fury — 150 mph (241 kph) winds and deluges of water — killed dozens of people and stranded countless in what for many communities has been their worst calamity in generations.
Rhonda Mitchell, who lives near the Baptist church, said all she had left was her faith in God.
“We don’t know what He is going to do,” she said, her belongings splayed to dry outside her mobile home as an empty U-Haul truck waited to be loaded.
“I just lost my whole life,” she said, beginning to sob. “I’m still here but I just lost everything I own. … I’m just trying to figure things out.”
At badly damaged Catholic churches and schools, reconstruction work is already underway. But Dewane said his priority is to “meet people where they are” and ensure the Catholic community can help overall relief efforts.
That ranges from finding shelter for teachers whose homes were leveled even as many schools are re-opening this week to helping counsel elderly neighbors. The diocese is working with Catholic Charities to set up distribution centers for donations as well as supplies provided by FEMA.
But many successful efforts are grassroots. When a group of nuns in small Wauchula, an inland town, lost power, they decided to just empty out their freezers of meat and other perishables, and invite the entire neighborhood for a barbeque. The fire blazing, hundreds of people lined up and started adding what they had in their own rapidly warming fridges.
“We’re doing as well as we can,” Dewane said. “I think we can only be the Lord’s instruments.”
The Rev. Charles Cannon, pastor at St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church, sermonized about the temporariness of the community’s losses. While much was lost, he said, not all is gone.
“People think they have lost everything, but you haven’t lost everything if you haven’t lost yourself and the people you love,” Cannon said after Sunday services that were held outside amid the fallen boughs of once-majestic oaks.
Cannon pointed out that the debris that left church grounds looking like an ugly, unearthly place can be cleaned.
“Most of the work has been to get the people feeling safe again,” he said, “Almost everybody has been without power. All of them without water. Trying hard to get them feeling comfortable again.”
Down the street, about 50 parishioners at the Assembly of God Bethlehem Ministry gathered to share in their hardships. They recounted how they had no electricity, no drinkable running water and, in many cases, were left with damaged homes.
“But God has kept them safe,” said Victoria Araujo, a parishioner and occasional Sunday school teacher.
“Some people lost a lot of things … We need to pray for the people who lost more than us,” said the Rev. Ailton da Silva, whose congregants are mostly immigrant families from Brazil.
The storm has truly tested his community’s resiliency, he said, adding that “I think people will think about faith, family and God.”
Five years ago, Hurricane Irma swept through the region, causing extensive damage to his church. Repairs were still ongoing when Ian hit. The church fared much better this time.
In the end, “it’s just a building,” da Silva said. “The church is us.”
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Dell’Orto reported from Minneapolis.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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In Ian’s wake, Florida residents brave a slow wait for power
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BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. — Nearly a week after Hurricane Ian smashed into Florida and carved a path of destruction that reached into the Carolinas, more than half a million statewide residents faced another day without electricity Tuesday as rescuers continued their search for those trapped inside homes inundated with lingering floodwaters.
At least 78 people have been confirmed dead from the storm: 71 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba since Ian made landfall on the Caribbean island on Sept. 27, and in Florida a day later.
Search and rescue efforts were still ongoing in Florida, where more than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide.
But for many Florida residents, power restoration has become job one.
In the town of Naples, Kelly Sedgwick was just seeing news images Monday of the devastation Ian had caused, thanks to power that was restored four days after the hurricane slammed into her southwestern Florida community. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Bonita Springs, Catalina Mejilla was still using a borrowed generator to try to keep her kids and their grandfather cool as they waited for their power to be returned.
Ian knocked out power to 2.6 million customers across Florida when it roared ashore with 150-mph (241-kph) winds and pushing a powerful storm surge.
Since then, crews have been feverishly working to restore electricity infrastructure. State officials said they expect power to be restored by Sunday to customers whose power lines and other electric infrastructure is still intact.
About 520,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity Monday evening — an amount nearly equivalent to all the customers in Rhode Island.
For those who were getting power restored, it was a blessing. Sedgwick said she was “relieved” to have her power back and praised the crews for their hard work: “They’ve done a remarkable job.”
But for those who were still waiting, it was a difficult slog.
“The heat is unbearable,” Mejilla said. “When there’s no power … we can’t make food, we don’t have gas.” Her mother has trouble breathing and had to go to a friend’s house who had electricity. “I think they should give power to the people who are most in need.”
Eric Silagy, Chairman and CEO of Florida Power & Light — the largest power provider in the state — said he understands the frustrations and said crews are working as hard as they can to restore power as soon as possible. The utility expects to have power restored to 95% of its service areas by the end of the day Friday, he said.
A utility spokesperson said the remaining 5% comprises mostly cases where there’s a special situation making it difficult to restore power, such as the home being so damaged it can’t receive power or the area still being flooded. Those outages do not include customers whose homes or businesses were destroyed.
Another major electricity provider in the hard-hit coastal region — Lee County Electric Cooperative — said Monday it expects to hit the 95% mark by the end of Saturday. That figure does not include barrier islands like Sanibel that are in its service area.
Power restoration is always a key challenge after major hurricanes when high winds and flying debris can topple power lines that distribute electricity to homes or in more severe storms, damage major parts of the electric infrastructure such as transmission lines or power generation.
Silagy said the utility has invested $4 billion over the last 10 years to harden its infrastructure by doing things such as burying more power lines, noting 40% of their distribution system is now underground. The utility is also using more technology like drones that can stay aloft for hours to get a better picture of damage to the system, and sensors at substations that can alert them to flooding so they can shut off parts of the system before the water hits.
Silagy said he’s seen during Ian where those investments have paid off. On Fort Myers Beach, for example, where so many homes and businesses were wiped away, concrete utility poles remain standing, he said. Silagy said the company also didn’t lose a single transmission structure in the 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers) they have across Florida.
Meanwhile, rescue and salvage efforts across Florida remained difficult. In DeSoto County, northeast of Fort Myers, the Peace River and tributaries reached record high levels and boats were the only way to get supplies to many of the county’s 37,000 residents.
Ian washed away bridges and roads to several barrier islands. About 130 Florida Department of Transportation trucks started work on building a temporary bridge to Pine Island and by the end of the week should be finished on a structure drivers can carefully traverse at slow speeds, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Monday.
The governor said a similar temporary bridge is planned for nearby Sanibel, but will take more time.
Elsewhere, the hurricane’s remnants, now a nor’easter, weren’t done with the U.S.
The mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts were getting flooding rains. The storm’s onshore winds piled even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay.
Norfolk and Virginia Beach declared states of emergency, although a shift in wind direction prevented potentially catastrophic levels Monday, said Cody Poche, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit Florida on Wednesday. The president was in Puerto Rico on Monday, promising to “rebuild it all” after Hurricane Fiona knocked out all power to the island two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, in Florida neighborhoods still without power, many residents have been sharing generators to keep things such as refrigerators cool and using outdoor grills to cook food.
In Bonita Springs, Paula Arbuckle was sitting outside her one-story home while the sound of the generator under her carport roared. She bought a generator after Hurricane Irma slammed into this area in 2018 and left her neighborhood without power. She hasn’t used it since then but after Ian knocked out the lights she’s been sharing it with her next door neighbor. Arbuckle said it’s hard being without power.
“But I’m not the only one,” she said. Gesturing to her neighbor’s house she said: “I have a generator. They have a little baby over there. So we’re sharing the generator between the two homes.”
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Associated Press reporters Bobby Caina Calvan in Fort Meyers; Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; Frieda Frisaro and David Fischer in Miami; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
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For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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In Ian’s wake, Florida residents brave a slow wait for power
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BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. — Nearly a week after Hurricane Ian smashed into Florida and carved a path of destruction that reached into the Carolinas, more than half a million statewide residents faced another day without electricity Tuesday as rescuers continued their search for those trapped inside homes inundated with lingering floodwaters.
At least 78 people have been confirmed dead from the storm: 71 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba since Ian made landfall on the Caribbean island on Sept. 27, and in Florida a day later.
Search and rescue efforts were still ongoing in Florida, where more than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide.
But for many Florida residents, power restoration has become job one.
In the town of Naples, Kelly Sedgwick was just seeing news images Monday of the devastation Ian had caused, thanks to power that was restored four days after the hurricane slammed into her southwestern Florida community. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Bonita Springs, Catalina Mejilla was still using a borrowed generator to try to keep her kids and their grandfather cool as they waited for their power to be returned.
Ian knocked out power to 2.6 million customers across Florida when it roared ashore with 150-mile-per-hour (241-kilometers per hour) winds and pushing a powerful storm surge.
Since then, crews have been feverishly working to restore electricity infrastructure. State officials said they expect power to be restored by Sunday to customers whose power lines and other electric infrastructure is still intact.
About 520,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity Monday evening — an amount nearly equivalent to all the customers in Rhode Island.
For those who were getting power restored, it was a blessing. Sedgwick said she was “relieved” to have her power back and praised the crews for their hard work: “They’ve done a remarkable job.”
But for those who were still waiting, it was a difficult slog.
“The heat is unbearable,” Mejilla said. “When there’s no power … we can’t make food, we don’t have gas.” Her mother has trouble breathing and had to go to a friend’s house who had electricity. “I think they should give power to the people who are most in need.”
Eric Silagy, Chairman and CEO of Florida Power & Light — the largest power provider in the state — said he understands the frustrations and said crews are working as hard as they can to restore power as soon as possible. The utility expects to have power restored to 95% of its service areas by the end of the day Friday, he said.
A utility spokesperson said the remaining 5% comprises mostly cases where there’s a special situation making it difficult to restore power, such as the home being so damaged it can’t receive power or the area still being flooded. Those outages do not include customers whose homes or businesses were destroyed.
Another major electricity provider in the hard-hit coastal region — Lee County Electric Cooperative — said Monday it expects to hit the 95% mark by the end of Saturday. That figure does not include barrier islands like Sanibel that are in its service area.
Power restoration is always a key challenge after major hurricanes when high winds and flying debris can topple power lines that distribute electricity to homes or in more severe storms, damage major parts of the electric infrastructure such as transmission lines or power generation.
Silagy said the utility has invested $4 billion over the last 10 years to harden its infrastructure by doing things such as burying more power lines, noting 40% of their distribution system is now underground. The utility is also using more technology like drones that can stay aloft for hours to get a better picture of damage to the system, and sensors at substations that can alert them to flooding so they can shut off parts of the system before the water hits.
Silagy said he’s seen during Ian where those investments have paid off. On Fort Myers Beach, for example, where so many homes and businesses were wiped away, concrete utility poles remain standing, he said. Silagy said the company also didn’t lose a single transmission structure in the 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers) they have across Florida.
Meanwhile, rescue and salvage efforts across Florida remained difficult. In DeSoto County, northeast of Fort Myers, the Peace River and tributaries reached record high levels and boats were the only way to get supplies to many of the county’s 37,000 residents.
Ian washed away bridges and roads to several barrier islands. About 130 Florida Department of Transportation trucks started work on building a temporary bridge to Pine Island and by the end of the week should be finished on a structure drivers can carefully traverse at slow speeds, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Monday.
The governor said a similar temporary bridge is planned for nearby Sanibel, but will take more time.
Elsewhere, the hurricane’s remnants, now a nor’easter, weren’t done with the U.S.
The mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts were getting flooding rains. The storm’s onshore winds piled even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay.
Norfolk and Virginia Beach declared states of emergency, although a shift in wind direction prevented potentially catastrophic levels Monday, said Cody Poche, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit Florida on Wednesday. The president was in Puerto Rico on Monday, promising to “rebuild it all” after Hurricane Fiona knocked out all power to the island two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, in Florida neighborhoods still without power, many residents have been sharing generators to keep things such as refrigerators cool and using outdoor grills to cook food.
In Bonita Springs, Paula Arbuckle was sitting outside her one-story home while the sound of the generator under her carport roared. She bought a generator after Hurricane Irma slammed into this area in 2018 and left her neighborhood without power. She hasn’t used it since then but after Ian knocked out the lights she’s been sharing it with her next door neighbor. Arbuckle said it’s hard being without power.
“But I’m not the only one,” she said. Gesturing to her neighbor’s house she said: “I have a generator. They have a little baby over there. So we’re sharing the generator between the two homes.”
———
Associated Press reporters Bobby Caina Calvan in Fort Meyers; Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; Frieda Frisaro and David Fischer in Miami; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
———
For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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Search-and-rescue efforts continue following Hurricane Ian
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Search-and-rescue efforts continue following Hurricane Ian – CBS News
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Photographer rides out Ian to capture the storm for others
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Chuck Larsen has lived on Sanibel Island for 12 years and until last week had never experienced a major hurricane. The 76-year-old who moved from California decided to ride out Hurricane Ian in his condominium with little idea of the horror he was about to go through.
He filled his bathtub with water, stocked up on food and water, and made sure batteries were charged and his windows were rated to withstand 150 mph (240 kph) winds. He followed the forecast thinking the island would get strong wind and rain, and trees would fall, but areas to the north would take the hardest hit.
“I have to tell you, I felt fairly safe going into this, but when the glass blew out and started shattering inside … I realized this was a problem,” said Larsen, who has since “retreated to Orlando.”
There was another reason Larsen wanted to stay. He is the part owner and photographer for the local news website santivachronicle.com.
“I stayed behind to record the event and record the aftermath for publication without realizing exactly how bad this storm was going to be,” Larsen said in a Zoom interview. “I tried to photograph the storm as it was happening. The high winds, the rain, the surge from the Gulf. After the storm I tried to document what was left, what damage was done, and it was horrific.”
But with no internet or cell phone connectivity, he wasn’t able to publish any material until several days later when he was safely evacuated.
Larsen has spent a career in television and continues to run a television distribution consulting company. His first television job was as a reporter and anchor at an Indianapolis station. One of his co-workers was weatherman David Letterman.
Larsen was attracted to Sanibel because of its old Florida charm and the community of residents who want to preserve it. The barrier island off Fort Myers has no buildings taller than three stories, no chain restaurants or stores, no traffic lights and is home to locally owned shops. It’s famous for the thousands of shells that wash up on the beaches and is a quaint, picturesque island for tourists.
He and his wife vacationed there a few years before deciding to move to the island of about 6,500 full-time residents. Sanibel attracts retirees — about 57% of the population is 65 years old or older — and while not an enclave for the mega-rich, the median value of owner-occupied homes tops $700,000 and its per capita income is more than $90,000, both well above state averages.
“At the moment, it looks like nothing you would remember if you had ever visited Sanibel. It’s devastated,” Larsen said.
While he, his wife and two dogs took shelter in an interior room during the storm, he ventured out the next morning with his camera hoping to get images for his news website, which covers community events, human interest stories and features on residents of Sanibel and nearby Captiva Island.
“It was like living in a war zone — just decimated property and condominiums, trees gone, I don’t think there was a car that survived. It was pretty dramatic, much worse than I’ve ever experienced,” Larsen said.
He and his wife eventually found a boat to take them to the mainland. They’re staying with a daughter in Orlando, not sure when they’ll be able to get back to their island home. But Larsen is sure they will.
“Sanibel is a very cohesive community. It will rebuild. It won’t happen immediately. It will probably happen faster than most people might think, but it will need a complete rebuild — electric grid, water systems — it’s going to take a lot of work, but it will come back. I have no doubt about that.”
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Survivors cope with destruction on Sanibel Island
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10/1: CBS Saturday Morning
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By boat and jet ski, volunteers assist in Ian rescue efforts
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SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — There was no time to waste. As Hurricane Ian lashed southwest Florida, Bryan Stern, a veteran of the U.S. military, and others began gathering crews, boats and even crowbars for the urgent task that would soon be at hand: rescuing hundreds of people who might get trapped by floodwaters.
“As soon as the sun came up, we started rolling,” said Stern, who last year put together a search-and-rescue team called Project Dynamo, which has undertaken operations in Afghanistan, Ukraine and, now, Florida.
Project Dynamo has rescued more than 20 people, many of them elderly residents who became cut off when the Category 4 storm washed away a bridge connecting the Florida mainland with Sanibel Island, a crescent-shaped sliver of shell-strewn sand popular with tourists that is home to about 7,000 residents.
On a stretch of beach, etched into the sand, there were calls for immediate assistance: “Help,” “SOS.”
As local authorities continue reaching people isolated on barrier islands or trapped by floodwaters, others unwilling to be bystanders have sprung into action, sometimes risking their own safety or setting aside their own losses and travails to aid official rescue operations. It isn’t a new phenomenon: Grassroots rescue groups have responded to past disasters, including after Hurricane Ida pounded Louisiana last year.
Although some officials frown on people running their own rescue operations — especially in the early going if it’s not safe enough yet or if the rescuers lack training — others welcome every bit of help.
“It sort of restores your view of humanity. You see people chipping in and they aren’t getting paid for it,” said Tim Barrett, the training division chief for the Sanibel Fire Department. “There’s even people whose homes are destroyed, but they’re helping them. They’re still helping other people.”
It can be dangerous work. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the ferocious storm, which lashed some areas with winds of 155 mph (249 kph) or more and pummeled the coast with ocean surge.
“We’re still working on rescuing people. I mean, this is just horrible that people have lost their lives. It’s horrible that people are still possibly stuck in rubble,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“But I’ve been talking to the sheriffs and first responders and they’re trying to get to these people as quickly as they can.,” he said. “They’ve been working to evacuate people that stayed on, places like Sanibel and Pine Island and Fort Myers Beach.”
The storm has killed dozens of people in Florida and more bodies might still be recovered.
Matt Mengel and his friends said they had made seven rescues so far, most of them elderly residents of Sanibel Island whom they reached on jet skis.
“We had gasoline. We had jet skis. We had water. We had food and snacks. And our mission was just to go find them, dead or alive,” he said.
He called the destruction of the area, where he has lived for seven years, heartbreaking. “It was sad to see our home get destroyed and our favorite spots get destroyed.”
The group’s rescue missions began Friday when they hadn’t heard from a friend who lives and works on Sanibel Island. That friend was found safe and sound, but they quickly found others who needed help.
Just as they were leaving, Mengel’s girlfriend heard a woman calling out for help. They responded and found a couple who desperately wanted to leave the island.
A Coast Guard helicopter was patrolling nearby, and Mengel — with the help of the Project Dynamo crew — began frantically waving for attention. The helicopter spotted him and touched down on the beach to whisk the couple away.
“All I wanted to do was help,” Mengel said.
A local television station recounted how three siblings — Leah, Evan and Jayden Wickert — helped save about 30 people from rising floodwaters in a Naples neighborhood.
Water had deepened to about 6 feet (nearly 2 meters) in their neighborhood, and folks were standing on whatever they could to keep their necks above water. The siblings used kayaks and boats to save people.
“There were a lot of people standing on their couches getting out of the water,” Leah Wickert told WBBH-TV.
Betty Reynolds, 73, expressed appreciation for the men who came to her rescue after she spent days in her damaged Sanibel Island home.
“You hate to leave a home you’ve lived in for 47 years,” she said, but said it filled with “lots and lots of mud.”
She said she didn’t evacuate before the storm because she and her home survived previous storms unscathed. But she said this one took her by surprise: “I just didn’t believe there was going to be so much storm surge.”
Reynolds was taken off the island Saturday while Stern and his Project Dynamo team were on another mission, having received a text from a man who was concerned about his mother.
Stern, whose cohorts are also military veterans, speaks quickly and is full of bravado. On a recent trip to Sanibel Island, he landed a boat directly on the beach, jumped into the water as it hit the sand and ran ashore.
“It’s like D-Day,” he said afterward.
When there was no answer at the home of the woman whose son had texted, his team used a crowbar to enter, with the son’s permission.
Stern said he couldn’t stand by. His rescue project was borne out of his frustrations watching Americans and their allies struggle last year to get out of Afghanistan.
He has since turned his attention to helping people flee the war in Ukraine, where Stern and his team plan to return soon after what he called a brief “vacation” in Florida.
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Find more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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‘We’re with you,’ Biden tells Puerto Rico ahead of visit
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PONCE, Puerto Rico (AP) — President Joe Biden arrived in Puerto Rico on Monday to survey damage from Hurricane Fiona, as tens of thousands of people remain without power two weeks after the storm hit.
The Category 1 hurricane knocked out electrical power to the U.S. territory of 3.2 million people, 44% of whom live below the poverty line.
Power has been restored to about 90% of the island’s 1.47 million customers, but more than 137,000 others, mostly in the hardest hit areas of Puerto Rico’s southern and western regions, continue to struggle in the dark. Another 66,000 customers are without water.
Biden has pledged that the U.S. government will not abandon Puerto Rico as it starts to rebuild again, five years after the more powerful Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
While leaving the White House on Monday morning, the president said he was going in part because people there “haven’t been taken very good care of,” and they were “trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane.”
During his visit, Biden planned to announce the administration will provide $60 million through last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law to help Puerto Rico shore up levees, strengthen flood walls and create a new flood warning system so the island will be better prepared for future storms, the White House said.
“We see what you’re going through, and we’re with you,” Biden told Puerto Ricans and Floridians in a message Sunday on his official Twitter account.
Florida is cleaning up after Hurricane Ian churned across that state last week, killing more than 60 people, decimating some coastal communities and flooding others. Biden plans to visit Florida on Wednesday to survey damage.
The president was accompanied by first lady Jill Biden and Deanne Criswell, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator. They touched down in Ponce, a city on the southern coast, where most of the storm damage is.
“He’s going to the hardest hit area of Puerto Rico, and it’s an area where presidents have not gone to before,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi planned to update Biden on recovery efforts.
“We will make sure to keep working together to ensure the continuity of a reconstruction already underway,” the governor tweeted on Sunday.
Fiona caused catastrophic flooding, tore apart roads and bridges, and unleashed more than 100 landslides when it hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 18. At least two people died after being swept away by floods, and several others were killed in accidents related to the use of candles or generator during the island-wide power outage.
Government officials have estimated some $3 billion in damages, but warn that costs could rise significantly as evaluations continue.
Some people in Puerto Rico wondered whether Biden’s visit would change anything as they recalled how President Donald Trump visited after Hurricane Maria hit as a more powerful Category 4 storm in 2017, and tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd in a display that riled many.
“We know that there may have been some issues in the previous administration,” Criswell said Monday. “We are laser-focused on giving them the support they need.”
Criswell, who said that FEMA personnel were sent to the island before the storm and will remain there to help with recovery, visited Puerto Rico shortly after Fiona struck.
“They finally feel like this administration cares for them, and that they’re going to be there for them to support them through this response and recovery effort,” she said.
There’s entrenched skepticism in some areas of the island that anything will change.
Manuel Veguilla, a 63-year-old retired mechanic who lives in a remote community in the hard-hit northern mountain town of Caguas, said he didn’t expect his life to improve in the aftermath of Fiona, which cut off his neighborhood from any help for a week.
“They always offer the lollipop to the kids,” he said, referring to Biden’s visit. “But in the end, the outcome is always the same. The aid goes to those who have the most.”
Biden recently told Pierluisi that he authorized 100% federal funding for a month for debris removal, search and rescue efforts, power and water restoration, shelter and food.
The lack of electrical power on the island led to the temporary closure of businesses, including gas stations and grocery stores, as fuel supplies dwindled amid heavy generator use. As a result, many cheered the Biden administration’s decision to temporarily waive a federal law so that a British Petroleum ship could deliver 300,000 barrels of diesel.
Many also have begun demanding that Puerto Rico be fully exempted from the law, known as the Jones Act, that requires that all goods transported to Puerto Rico be aboard a ship built in the U.S., owned and crewed by U.S. citizens and flying the U.S. flag. This drives up costs for an island that already imports 85% of its food.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also said Puerto Ricans would not be forgotten.
Rubio said the island appeared to be “in better position to respond this time around” due to the prepositioning of personnel and supplies before the storm hit and because part of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid had been rebuilt after Hurricane Maria.
“We will do everything we can, we always have, to support Puerto Rico now in the recovery after this, yet another devastating storm,” Rubio said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
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Superville reported from Washington. Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts
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FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands.
Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful.
And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, with a coastal flood warning in effect Monday.
Ian’s remnants moved offshore and formed a nor’easter that is expected to pile even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay and threatened to cause the most significant tidal flooding event in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region in the last 10 to 15 years, said Cody Poche, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
The island town of Chincoteague declared a state of emergency Sunday and strongly recommended that residents in certain areas evacuate. The Eastern Shore and northern portion of North Carolina’s Outer Banks were also likely to be impacted.
At least 68 people have been confirmed dead: 61 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba.
Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy told NBC’s “Today Show” on Monday that the search and rescue mission remained underway, and would be taking place for the next couple of days. Murphy said that’s why residents who evacuated are largely being kept away from their homes.
With the death toll rising, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the federal government was ready to help in a huge way, focusing first on victims in Florida, which took the brunt of one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit the state on Wednesday.
Flooded roadways and washed-out bridges to barrier islands left many people isolated amid limited cellphone service and a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity and the internet. Officials warned that the situation in many areas isn’t expected to improve for several days because the rain that fell has nowhere to go because waterways are overflowing.
Fewer than 620,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity by early Monday, down from a peak of 2.6 million.
Criswell told “Fox News Sunday” that the federal government, including the Coast Guard and Department of Defense, had moved into position “the largest amount of search and rescue assets that I think we’ve ever put in place before.”
Still, recovery will take time, said Criswell, who visited the state Friday and Saturday to assess the damage and talk to survivors. She cautioned that dangers remain with downed power lines in standing water.
More than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide, according to Florida’s emergency management agency.
Rescue missions were ongoing, especially to Florida’s barrier islands, which were cut off from the mainland when storm surges destroyed causeways and bridges.
The state will build a temporary traffic passageway for the largest one, Pine Island, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday, adding that an allocation had been approved for Deportment of Transportation to build it this week and construction could start as soon as Monday.
“It’s not going to be a full bridge, you’re going to have to go over it probably at 5 miles an hour or something, but it’ll at least let people get in and off the island with their vehicles,” the governor said at a news conference.
Coast Guard, municipal and private crews have been using helicopters, boats and even jetskis to evacuate people over the past several days.
In rural Seminole County, north of Orlando, residents donned waders, boots and bug spray to paddle to their flooded homes Sunday.
Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney after kayaking there.
“I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding a nearby road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”
Elsewhere, power remained knocked out to at least half of South Carolina’s Pawleys Island, a beach community roughly 75 miles (115 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston. In North Carolina, the storm downed trees and power lines.
___
Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana in Ft. Myers; Brendan Farrington and Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; David Fischer in Miami; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va.; and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.
___
For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands.
Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful.
And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, beginning overnight Monday.
Ian’s remnants moved offshore and formed a nor’easter that is expected to pile even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay and threatened to cause the most significant tidal flooding event in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region in the last 10 to 15 years, said Cody Poche, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
The island town of Chincoteague declared a state of emergency Sunday and strongly recommended that residents in certain areas evacuate. The Eastern Shore and northern portion of North Carolina’s Outer Banks were also likely to be impacted.
At least 68 people have been confirmed dead: 61 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba.
With the death toll rising, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the federal government was ready to help in a huge way, focusing first on victims in Florida, which took the brunt of one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit the state on Wednesday.
Flooded roadways and washed-out bridges to barrier islands left many people isolated amid limited cellphone service and a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity and the internet. Officials warned that the situation in many areas isn’t expected to improve for several days because the rain that fell has nowhere to go because waterways are overflowing.
Fewer than 700,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity by late Sunday, down from a peak of 2.6 million.
Criswell told “Fox News Sunday” that the federal government, including the Coast Guard and Department of Defense, had moved into position “the largest amount of search and rescue assets that I think we’ve ever put in place before.”
Still, recovery will take time, said Criswell, who visited the state Friday and Saturday to assess the damage and talk to survivors. She cautioned that dangers remain with downed power lines in standing water.
More than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide, according to Florida’s emergency management agency.
Rescue missions were ongoing, especially to Florida’s barrier islands, which were cut off from the mainland when storm surges destroyed causeways and bridges.
The state will build a temporary traffic passageway for the largest one, Pine Island, DeSantis said Sunday, adding that an allocation had been approved for Deportment of Transportation to build it this week and construction could start as soon as Monday.
“It’s not going to be a full bridge, you’re going to have to go over it probably at 5 miles an hour or something, but it’ll at least let people get in and off the island with their vehicles,” the governor said at a news conference.
Coast Guard, municipal and private crews have been using helicopters, boats and even jetskis to evacuate people over the past several days.
In rural Seminole County, north of Orlando, residents donned waders, boots and bug spray to paddle to their flooded homes Sunday.
Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney after kayaking there.
“I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding a nearby road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”
Elsewhere, power remained knocked out to at least half of South Carolina’s Pawleys Island, a beach community roughly 75 miles (115 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston. In North Carolina, the storm downed trees and power lines.
———
Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana in Ft. Myers; Brendan Farrington and Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; David Fischer in Miami; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va.; and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.
———
For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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By boat and jet ski, volunteers assist in Ian rescue efforts
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SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — There was no time to waste. As Hurricane Ian lashed southwest Florida, Bryan Stern, a veteran of the U.S. military, and others began gathering crews, boats and even crowbars for the urgent task that would soon be at hand: rescuing hundreds of people who might get trapped by floodwaters.
“As soon as the sun came up, we started rolling,” said Stern, who last year put together a search-and-rescue team called Project Dynamo, which has undertaken operations in Afghanistan, Ukraine and, now, Florida.
Project Dynamo has rescued more than 20 people, many of them elderly residents who became cut off when the Category 4 storm washed away a bridge connecting the Florida mainland with Sanibel Island, a crescent-shaped sliver of shell-strewn sand popular with tourists that is home to about 7,000 residents.
On a stretch of beach, etched into the sand, there were calls for immediate assistance: “Help,” “SOS.”
As local authorities continue reaching people isolated on barrier islands or trapped by floodwaters, others unwilling to be bystanders have sprung into action, sometimes risking their own safety or setting aside their own losses and travails to aid official rescue operations. It isn’t a new phenomenon: Grassroots rescue groups have responded to past disasters, including after Hurricane Ida pounded Louisiana last year.
Although some officials frown on people running their own rescue operations — especially in the early going if it’s not safe enough yet or if the rescuers lack training — others welcome every bit of help.
“It sort of restores your view of humanity. You see people chipping in and they aren’t getting paid for it,” said Tim Barrett, the training division chief for the Sanibel Fire Department. “There’s even people whose homes are destroyed, but they’re helping them. They’re still helping other people.”
It can be dangerous work. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the ferocious storm, which lashed some areas with winds of 155 mph (249 kph) or more and pummeled the coast with ocean surge.
“We’re still working on rescuing people. I mean, this is just horrible that people have lost their lives. It’s horrible that people are still possibly stuck in rubble,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“But I’ve been talking to the sheriffs and first responders and they’re trying to get to these people as quickly as they can.,” he said. “They’ve been working to evacuate people that stayed on, places like Sanibel and Pine Island and Fort Myers Beach.”
The storm has killed dozens of people in Florida and more bodies might still be recovered.
Matt Mengel and his friends said they had made seven rescues so far, most of them elderly residents of Sanibel Island whom they reached on jet skis.
“We had gasoline. We had jet skis. We had water. We had food and snacks. And our mission was just to go find them, dead or alive,” he said.
He called the destruction of the area, where he has lived for seven years, heartbreaking. “It was sad to see our home get destroyed and our favorite spots get destroyed.”
The group’s rescue missions began Friday when they hadn’t heard from a friend who lives and works on Sanibel Island. That friend was found safe and sound, but they quickly found others who needed help.
Just as they were leaving, Mengel’s girlfriend heard a woman calling out for help. They responded and found a couple who desperately wanted to leave the island.
A Coast Guard helicopter was patrolling nearby, and Mengel — with the help of the Project Dynamo crew — began frantically waving for attention. The helicopter spotted him and touched down on the beach to whisk the couple away.
“All I wanted to do was help,” Mengel said.
A local television station recounted how three siblings — Leah, Evan and Jayden Wickert — helped save about 30 people from rising floodwaters in a Naples neighborhood.
Water had deepened to about 6 feet (nearly 2 meters) in their neighborhood, and folks were standing on whatever they could to keep their necks above water. The siblings used kayaks and boats to save people.
“There were a lot of people standing on their couches getting out of the water,” Leah Wickert told WBBH-TV.
Betty Reynolds, 73, expressed appreciation for the men who came to her rescue after she spent days in her damaged Sanibel Island home.
“You hate to leave a home you’ve lived in for 47 years,” she said, but said it filled with “lots and lots of mud.”
She said she didn’t evacuate before the storm because she and her home survived previous storms unscathed. But she said this one took her by surprise: “I just didn’t believe there was going to be so much storm surge.”
Reynolds was taken off the island Saturday while Stern and his Project Dynamo team were on another mission, having received a text from a man who was concerned about his mother.
Stern, whose cohorts are also military veterans, speaks quickly and is full of bravado. On a recent trip to Sanibel Island, he landed a boat directly on the beach, jumped into the water as it hit the sand and ran ashore.
“It’s like D-Day,” he said afterward.
When there was no answer at the home of the woman whose son had texted, his team used a crowbar to enter, with the son’s permission.
Stern said he couldn’t stand by. His rescue project was borne out of his frustrations watching Americans and their allies struggle last year to get out of Afghanistan.
He has since turned his attention to helping people flee the war in Ukraine, where Stern and his team plan to return soon after what he called a brief “vacation” in Florida.
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Find more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands.
Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful.
And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, beginning overnight Monday.
Ian’s remnants moved offshore and formed a nor’easter that is expected to pile even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay and threatened to cause the most significant tidal flooding event in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region in the last 10 to 15 years, said Cody Poche, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
The island town of Chincoteague declared a state of emergency Sunday and strongly recommended that residents in certain areas evacuate. The Eastern Shore and northern portion of North Carolina’s Outer Banks were also likely to be impacted.
At least 68 people have been confirmed dead: 61 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba.
With the death toll rising, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the federal government was ready to help in a huge way, focusing first on victims in Florida, which took the brunt of one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit the state on Wednesday.
Flooded roadways and washed-out bridges to barrier islands left many people isolated amid limited cellphone service and a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity and the internet. Officials warned that the situation in many areas isn’t expected to improve for several days because the rain that fell has nowhere to go because waterways are overflowing.
Fewer than 700,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity by late Sunday, down from a peak of 2.6 million.
Criswell told “Fox News Sunday” that the federal government, including the Coast Guard and Department of Defense, had moved into position “the largest amount of search and rescue assets that I think we’ve ever put in place before.”
Still, recovery will take time, said Criswell, who visited the state Friday and Saturday to assess the damage and talk to survivors. She cautioned that dangers remain with downed power lines in standing water.
More than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide, according to Florida’s emergency management agency.
Rescue missions were ongoing, especially to Florida’s barrier islands, which were cut off from the mainland when storm surges destroyed causeways and bridges.
The state will build a temporary traffic passageway for the largest one, Pine Island, DeSantis said Sunday, adding that an allocation had been approved for Deportment of Transportation to build it this week and construction could start as soon as Monday.
“It’s not going to be a full bridge, you’re going to have to go over it probably at 5 miles an hour or something, but it’ll at least let people get in and off the island with their vehicles,” the governor said at a news conference.
Coast Guard, municipal and private crews have been using helicopters, boats and even jetskis to evacuate people over the past several days.
In rural Seminole County, north of Orlando, residents donned waders, boots and bug spray to paddle to their flooded homes Sunday.
Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney after kayaking there.
“I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding a nearby road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”
Elsewhere, power remained knocked out to at least half of South Carolina’s Pawleys Island, a beach community roughly 75 miles (115 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston. In North Carolina, the storm downed trees and power lines.
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Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana in Ft. Myers; Brendan Farrington and Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; David Fischer in Miami; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va.; and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.
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For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
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Hurricane Ian’s path of destruction | 60 Minutes
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Hurricane Ian’s path of destruction | 60 Minutes – CBS News
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