Parts of Florida could be without power for more than a week

() — It could be more than a week until power lines are fully restored in parts of Florida as residents face major flooding after the deadly Hurricane Ianwhich may be the tropical cyclone More expensive in the history of the so-called Sunshine State.

At least 66 people are believed to have died from Ian in Florida alone, with four people killed in cyclone-related incidents in North Carolina, officials say. Ian also knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people in South Carolina and North Carolina from Friday through early Saturday.

Eric Silagy, president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Company, said it could be up to a week beginning Sunday before power is restored to counties affected by the hurricane. And some customers may not come back online for “weeks or months” because some buildings with structural damage will need safety inspections first.

Meanwhile, river flooding may continue inland well into next week, meteorologists warned.

In Arcadia, West Florida, dozens of miles inland, river flooding still covered part of the city like a lake on Saturday, rendering a state highway invisible and swallowing everything but the roof of a gas station, he saw. a crew there.

Near Sarasota, a possible levee breach forced officers to evacuate a neighborhood early Saturday over fears of flooding.

In Fort Myers, a hard-hit place where storm surge swallowed vehicles and the first levels of many homes, Rob Guarino hosts friends who lost everything in his high-rise apartment.

“Some of them stay with me now. They just have nowhere to go,” Guarino told ‘s Boris Sánchez on Saturday morning.

By Saturday night, Ian was a post tropical cyclone that continued to weaken in southern Virginia and could dump several more inches of rain over parts of West Virginia and western Maryland through Sunday morning, the National Hurricane Center said.

On Wednesday, Ian slammed into southwest Florida as a hurricane. category 4spraying coastal homes and trapping residents with floodwaters, especially in the areas of Fort-Myers and Naples. She moved inland through Thursday, bringing strong winds and damaging flooding to the central and northeastern areas.

The hurricane then made landfall again on Friday in South Carolina, between Charleston and Myrtle Beach, as a Category 1 storm, flooding homes and vehicles along the coast and eventually knocking out power to hundreds of thousands more in North Carolina. South, North Carolina and Virginia.

A boy runs under a tree that fell from the effects of Hurricane Ian, in Charleston, South Carolina, on Friday.

More than a million customers in Florida were still without power as of Saturday night, and more than 99,000 were without power in North Carolina, according to poweroutage.us.