Hurricane Ian: Hundreds rescued in southwest Florida as death toll continues to rise

Storm surges have obliterated parts of the state’s west coast

Hurricane Ian has finally slowed to a post-tropical cyclone bringing heavy rains and winds to Virginia on Saturday.

Florida’s death toll jumped to 65 people from the devastating storm as search and rescue efforts continued. So far, hundreds of stranded people have been rescued.

The storm made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday close to the city of Fort Myers.

It was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved across the state but regained strength over the Atlantic Ocean, reaching Category 1 hurricane status again. The storm then made landfall again in South Carolina, north of Charleston.

Up to 12 feet of storm surge submerged portions of Florida's west coast collapsing homes and offices, and causing untold amounts of property damage.

Law enforcement officials in Florida said more deaths will likely be reported as rescue crews continue to work through the post-storm wreckage.

One man died in Deltona while he was trying to drain his pool. He slipped down an embankment and was washed into a canal.

Two men reportedly died while helping their wives climb out of a window to reach a tree from the home where the couples were sheltering.

“These guys pushed their wives out the windows to where a tree was,” a friend, Kevin Behen, told CNN. “They just looked at their wives and they said, ‘We can’t hold on anymore, we love you. Bye,’ and that was it.”

Lake, Manatee, and Polk counties have confirmed one death each. Sarasota County confirmed two people have died, Volusia County has confirmed five deaths, Collier County has confirmed eight deaths, Charlotte County has confirmed 12 deaths, and Lee County has confirmed 35 deaths.

Lee County manager Roger Desjarlais told CNN that "not as many people evacuated" as officials hoped would .

"We know there has to be many fatalities yet to be accounted for," he said.

Mr Desjarlais described the severity of the destruction, saying “it looked as though someone had just dropped from the sky, picked up hotels and buildings, and took them away.”

Four people were also killed by the storm in North Carolina, according to Governor Roy Cooper. Those numbers may climb as more information becomes available.

The US Coast Guard reported more than 275 rescues on Saturday. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that more than 700 rescues had taken place over all.

The bulk of the rescues were in Fort Myers and Naples where storm surge overwhelmed entire neighbourhoods, and some of those remained were force to climb onto roofs. Air and boat rescues were required to help some residents escape the flooding.

Workers in Cuba continued to work to restore power to the island after the hurricane knocked out the island’s power grid on its way toward the US. Two people were confirmed dead on the island after the hurricane and 17 migrants that were at sea when the storm blew in are still missing.

President Joe Biden has made a disaster declaration for the Seminole Tribe of Florida as well as an emergency declaration for the state of North Carolina.

By declaring a disaster, Mr Biden clears the way for federal funding through grants and access to services like housing and property loss recovery assistance.

On Friday, Mr Biden declared an emergency in the state of Florida, and South Carolina. The governor of Georgia also declared an emergency in that state.

Dr. Joel Myers, AccuWeather’s founder and CEO, estimated the total economic damage to the southeast US to be between $100bn and $120bn.

The climate crisis is intensifying extreme weather including hurricanes, according to scientists.

While no stranger to hurricanes, Florida is one of the US states most at risk from flooding linked to the climate crisis in the coming decades, the nonprofit First Street Foundation reports.

Rapid analysis, published by researchers at Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on Thursday, shows that human-induced climate change increased Ian’s extreme rain rates by more than 10 per cent, the nonprofit Climate Signals said in an email.

The climate crisis does not necessarily mean more hurricanes in the future – but planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, largely from burning fossil fuels, are driving hotter air and ocean temperatures that supercharge storms, making them more powerful and wetter.