Ian’s death toll climbs after storm barrels through southeast U.S.

Jacob Knutson, Herb Scribner, Mark Robinson

At least51 people have died in the U.S. after Ian pummeled Florida’s western coast as a massive hurricane before barreling through the Carolinas Friday, according to AP.

The latest: About 1.75 million customers were without power in the southeast U.S. on Saturday morning as affected states shifted toward recovery efforts in the hurricane’s aftermath.

• About 1 million customers in Florida remained without power on Saturday night, down from an earlier peak of 2.67 million.
• Of those confirmed dead, 47 were in Florida, while another four occurred in North Carolina, according to AP. Another three people had died in Cuba as a result of the storm.
• Two of the four deaths in North Carolina were from storm-related car crashes.

An elderly couple in Florida was found dead after their home lost power and the oxygen machines they rely on shut off, AP reported.

• A 22-year-old woman died when she was ejected in an ATV rollover incident on a washout road, AP reports.
• A 71-year-old man died from head injuries when he fell off a roof Wednesday while putting up rain shutters, per AP.

Two people died in a car crash on Thursday afternoon in Putnam County, which was inundated with rain as the storm passed over the state.

• At least two people were confirmed dead on Sanibel, an island in southwest Florida that experienced major surge-related flooding during the storm.
• A person in Lake County died on Wednesday after his vehicle hydroplaned, while another person was found dead in the city of Deltona in central Florida, according to AP.

What happened: Ian made landfall Friday as a Category 1 storm in South Carolina, carrying a “life-threatening” storm surge of 4 to 7 feet, Axios’ Andrew Freedman writes.

• The storm had regained hurricane status on Thursday night on its way to a damaging encounter with the Carolinas and a portion of southern Georgia.

What they’re saying: The hurricane “is likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history,” Biden said Friday at a press briefing. “You have all seen on television homes and property wiped out. It’s gonna take months, years to rebuild.”

• Biden had said Thursday “this could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history.”
• “We absolutely expect to have mortality from this hurricane,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news briefing Thursday.
• DeSantis said there were more than 700 confirmed rescues as of Thursday evening.
• Some of the deadliest hurricanes in Florida tracked by the National Hurricane Center during the first half of the 20th century saw between around 350 and 1,800 deaths.

NHC officials warned Thursday night that many hurricane-related deaths occur days after the storm has passed while people are recovering.

• These deaths, also called “indirect deaths,” primarily arise from excessive heat and over-exertion and carbon monoxide poisoning from running generators indoors.

Courtesy: (Axios)