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US President Joe Biden has said “it will take months, years to rebuild” the devastation left by powerful Hurricane Ian, which has left at least 23 dead and destroyed Florida and unquantified devastation in South Carolina.
“We’re just beginning to see the scale of the destruction… It’s likely to be among the worst in the nation’s history… It’s not just a crisis for Florida,” Biden said. “This is an American crisis.”
And it is that the deadly Hurricane Ian is one of the most powerful storms that has ever hit the United States. After devastating Florida, where it also left more than two million homes and businesses without power, it continued on its way to South Carolina. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), it would have made landfall near Georgetown as a category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour.
It was later downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, but the NHC said Friday night that Ian is bringing heavy rain, flash flooding and high winds to both South Carolina and North Carolina. Some areas can expect up to 20 centimeters of rain.
Photos of the havoc and destruction after the passage of Hurricane Ian through Florida
Ian tore through central Florida as a violent hurricane causing severe damage, trapping residents in flooded homes and leaving 2.5 million people without power.
Disaster in Florida
The powerful hurricane made landfall off the southwestern coast of Florida on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm, one step away from being the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
At least 23 people have died, Florida authorities said Friday night.
Some 17 migrants are also still missing after a boat capsized during the hurricane on Wednesday, according to the US Coast Guard. One person was found dead and nine others rescued, including four Cubans who swam to shore in the Florida Keys.
CoreLogic, a firm that specializes in property analytics, said wind-related losses for residential and commercial properties in Florida could cost insurers up to $32 billion, while flood losses could reach $15 billion. of dollars.
survivors
Rescue teams were helping survivors Friday in devastated Florida communities and the US Coast Guard said it had carried out 117 rescues using boats and helicopters of people trapped in flooded homes.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said the coastal city of Fort Myers, where the hurricane made landfall, was “ground zero,” but “it was such a big storm that it has inland effects,” including severe flooding in the city of Orlando.
Many Floridians evacuated ahead of the storm, but thousands chose to shelter in place.
More than 1.4 million Floridians were still without power Friday and two hard-hit areas near Fort Myers, Pine Island and Sanibel Island, were cut off.
Devastation
In North Carolina and South Carolina, nearly half a million customers lost power, according to tracking website poweroutage.us, as an already weakened Ian battered the state.
Before laying waste to Florida, Ian plunged all of Cuba into darkness after bringing down the national power grid. Electricity was gradually returning, but many houses remain without power and several protests were reported in the streets of Havana.
After making landfall in South Carolina, Ian is expected to rapidly weaken and dissipate on Saturday night.
[Con información de AP y AFP]
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