Adriana Gomez-licon, The Associated Press Posted Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 5:47 a.m. EDT Last updated Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 5:37 p.m. EDT
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) – Rescue crews piloted boats and waded through flooded streets Thursday to save thousands of Floridians trapped after Hurricane Ian destroyed homes and businesses and left millions in the dark.
Hours after weakening to a tropical depression as it crossed the Florida peninsula, Ian regained hurricane strength Thursday evening after exiting the Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricane Center predicted it would make landfall in South Carolina on Friday as a Category 1 hurricane.
The devastation inflicted on Florida came into focus a day after Ian struck as one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the US. The storm flooded homes on both coasts of the state, cut the only bridge on a barrier island and destroyed a historic boardwalk. dock and knocked out power to 2.67 million Florida homes and businesses, nearly a quarter of utility customers.
At least one man was confirmed dead in Florida, while two others died in Cuba after the hurricane hit the island on Tuesday.
Aerial photographs of the Fort Myers area, a few miles west of where Ian made landfall, showed houses torn from their slabs and deposited among the crushed debris. Businesses near the beach were completely swept away, leaving only twisted remains. Broken docks floated at odd angles next to damaged boats and fires burned on lots where houses once stood.
“We’ve never seen a storm surge of this magnitude,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference. “The amount of water that has been rising, and will likely continue to rise today, even if the storm passes, is basically a 500-year flood event.”
After leaving Florida as a tropical storm on Thursday and entering the Atlantic Ocean north of Cape Canaveral, Ian became a hurricane again with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h). The hurricane center predicted it would continue to strengthen before reaching South Carolina on Friday, but it will still remain a Category 1 storm.
A hurricane warning was issued for coastal South Carolina and extended to Cape Fear on the southeastern coast of North Carolina. With tropical storm-force winds reaching 415 miles (667 kilometers) from its center, Ian was expected to push 5-foot (1.5-meter) storm surges into coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas. Rainfall of up to 8 inches (20.32 centimeters) threatened flooding from South Carolina to Virginia.
Sheriffs in Southwest Florida said 911 centers were flooded with thousands of stranded calls, some with life-threatening emergencies. The U.S. Coast Guard began rescue efforts hours before dawn on the barrier islands near where Ian hit, DeSantis said. More than 800 members of federal urban search and rescue teams were also in the area.
In the Orlando area, Orange County firefighters used boats to reach people in a flooded neighborhood. A photo the department posted on Twitter showed a firefighter carrying someone in his arms through knee-deep water. At a nursing home in the area, patients were carried on stretchers through floodwaters to a waiting bus.
Among those rescued was Joseph Agboona. “We were glad to get out,” she said after grabbing two bags of possessions as water rose to the windows of her Orlando home. “It was really, really bad.”
In Fort Myers, Valerie Bartley’s family spent desperate hours holding the dining room table against the patio door, fearing the storm raging outside “was tearing our house apart.”
“I was terrified,” Bartley said. “What we heard was shingles and debris from everything in the neighborhood hitting our house.”
The storm tore off patio screens and snapped a palm tree in the yard, Bartley said, but left the roof intact and his family unharmed.
In Fort Myers, some people left shelters to return home Thursday afternoon. Long lines formed at gas stations and a Home Depot opened, allowing a few customers in at a time.
Frank Pino was at the end of the line, with about 100 people in front of him.
“I hope they leave something,” said Pino, “because I need almost everything.”
Authorities confirmed at least one death in Florida: a 72-year-old Deltona man who fell into a drain while using a hose to drain his pool in heavy rain, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said. Two more storm deaths were reported in Cuba.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said his office was struggling to respond to thousands of 911 calls in the Fort Myers area, but many roads and bridges were impassable.
“We still can’t get to a lot of the people who need it,” Marceno told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Emergency crews sawed through fallen trees to reach the stranded people. Many of the hardest hit areas were unable to call for help due to power and cell outages.
Christine Bomlitz was unable to reach her mother by phone after the storm made landfall south of Englewood, where the 84-year-old lives in a retirement community. Bomlitz said her mother was supposed to evacuate but was not picked up, so the anxious Las Vegas daughter posted a plea for help on social media.
Good Samaritans came to his aid on Thursday, with one wading in chest-deep water for a welfare check. Relieved that her mother had weathered the storm, Bomlitz was working to arrange a boat rescue.
“I’m grateful for this stranger, a total stranger,” Bomlitz said.
A piece of the Sanibel causeway fell into the sea, cutting off access to the barrier island where 6,300 people live. It was not known how many heeded evacuation orders, but Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Patrick Fuller expressed cautious optimism.
No deaths or injuries have been confirmed in the county, and overflights of the barrier islands show that “the integrity of the homes is much better than we anticipated,” Fuller said.
South of Sanibel Island, the historic pier in front of Naples Beach was destroyed, even with the pilings underneath. “Right now, there’s no dock,” said Collier County Commissioner Penny Taylor.
In Port Charlotte, a hospital emergency room flooded and high winds tore off part of the roof, sending water gushing into the intensive care unit. The sickest patients, some on ventilators, were crammed into the middle two floors as staff prepared for the arrival of storm victims, said Dr. Birgit Bodine of HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital.
Ian hit Florida as a monster Category 4 storm, with winds of 150 mph (241 km/h) that tied it for the fifth strongest hurricane ever to hit the US.
While scientists generally shy away from blaming climate change for specific storms without detailed analysis, Ian’s watery destruction fits what scientists have predicted for a warmer world: stronger, wetter hurricanes, though not necessarily month.
“This business of very, very heavy rainfall is something we expected to see because of climate change,” said MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel. “We will see more storms like Ian.”
Associated Press contributors include Terry Spencer and Tim Reynolds in Fort Myers; Cody Jackson in Tampa, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Miami; Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida; Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Bobby Caina Calvan in New York.