Florida authorities allowed people to return to their homes on a coastal island hit by Hurricane Ian on Saturday, but the governor warned the disaster is not over.
As many of the houses still stand on Estero Island but lack basic amenities, portable toilets, hand washing stations, caravans with showers and other essentials have been sent to residents wishing to stay, he said at a conference. Governor Ron DeSantis press release.
The debris will need to be removed before the rebuild begins.
“We have a lot to do and we still have a difficult situation ahead of us,” said DeSantis.
Although the authorities authorized the residents to return to the island after the storm passed, they closed the access to allow the various teams to complete the search for possible victims in all the damaged buildings. The search ended, residents lined up and were allowed to get back on the buses.
Shana Dam went to see what was left of her parents’ house.
“It’s gone,” Dam told the Fort Myers News-Press. “He just disappeared.”
Getting around the island, which includes most of the city of Fort Myers Beach, is difficult due to the debris from the storm, although heavy machinery is used to clean the streets.
While handwritten signs were posted throughout the area to warn looters that they would be shot by homeowners, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said only nine cases of theft were reported.
Category 4 Hurricane Ian, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (249 km / h) when it landed, became the third deadliest storm of this century in the continental United States after Katrina, which resulted in nearly 1,400 deaths. , and Hurricane Sandy, which caused 233 despite weakening due to a tropical storm before landing in the United States.
State officials have counted 94 storm-related deaths in Florida to date, most of which have occurred in Lee County, which includes the Fort Myers area and neighboring Gulf Coast islands, including Estero Island. .
