The rescue and reconstruction tasks after the onslaught of Hurricane Ian continue this Sunday in Florida, where there are still some 675 ,000 people without power and lifeguards have the focus on the islands facing the Atlantic located in the southwest of this state, “ground zero”.
The process of restoring electricity is progressing relatively quickly, especially in Lee and Charlotte counties, the most affected by Ian, and in According to Eric Silagy, president of FPL, the largest energy company in the state, it will still take a week for an almost complete restoration of supply.
The executive warned, however, that in buildings with structural damage the energy will not be available until the corresponding inspection is completed, which may take “weeks or months”, according to CNN today.
The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell pointed out today that there is still “a long way to go and many people are impacted,” including in central Florida, where homes were flooded as of Saturday.
“We are still actively in the search and rescue phase, trying to make sure that we count everyone that was in the path of the storm and that we have gone through all the houses to make sure that we don’t leave anyone behind,” Criswell told ABC.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said today that foresees that as of October 8 the roads and bridges that lead to Pine Island will be fully operational, to which its about 9, residents per year ra can only be accessed by sea or air.
Ian made landfall as a category 4 hurricane, out of a maximum of 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, last Wednesday in Cayo Costa, an island off the Pine Island, in Lee County, where the greatest damage from the cyclone is concentrated and many of its residents are still cut off, without power or drinking water.
While in Florida the number of deaths because of Ian they are in their fifties, the sheriff of this county, Carmine Marceno, reported today 42 deaths recorded so far in this demarcation, where rescuers have carried out more than 800 rescues.
Many residents of the Fort Myers and Cape Coral area have seen their homes reduced to rubble or blown away from its foundations due to strong winds (Ian made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 42 km/h) , yes e wonder if they were warned early enough about the need to evacuate.
In an interview with the CBS network, the mayor of the city of Fort Myers, Kevin Anderson, disagreed and said that the evacuation orders were issued when the time was right, that is, when the town fell within Ian’s cone of possible trajectory.
“There is a degree of personal responsibility here. I think the county acted appropriately. The point is that a certain percentage of people did not pay attention to the warnings despite everything”, he pointed out.
“This storm was very unpredictable,” said Marceno, who also defended the action of the authorities.
The White House announced on Saturday that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and the first lady, Jill Biden, will pay a visit to Florida next Wednesday, two days after being in Puerto Rico, which was recently affected by Hurricane Fiona.