While rising waters in Florida’s southwest rivers have crested or are near cresting, the levels aren’t expected to drop significantly for several days, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tyler Fleming in Tampa. The Myakka River washed over a stretch of Interstate 75, forcing a traffic-snarling highway closure Saturday on the key corridor linking Tampa to the north with the hard-hit southwest Florida region that straddles Port Charlotte and Fort Myers. River flooding added a major challenge to rescue and supply delivery efforts. Now, she said, she wasn't sure if her mother-in-law was still on the island or had been taken to a shelter somewhere. She did not want to go, thinking it wasn’t going to be bad," Schnapp said. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law own two businesses over there.
A pontoon boat had just arrived with a load of passengers from the island - with suitcases and animals in tow - but Schnapp’s mother-in-law was not among them. Four more deaths were reported in North Carolina and three earlier in Cuba.Īs of Saturday, more than 1,000 people had been rescued from flooded areas along Florida's southwestern coast alone, Daniel Hokanson, a four-star general and head of the National Guard, told The Associated Press while airborne to Florida.Ĭhris Schnapp was at the Port Sanibel Marina in Fort Myers on Saturday, waiting to see whether her 83-year-old mother-in-law had been evacuated from Sanibel Island. An elderly couple died after their oxygen machines shut off when they lost power, authorities said. The storm then weakened Saturday rolling into the mid-Atlantic.Īt least 34 people were confirmed dead, including 27 people in Florida mostly from drowning but others from the storm's tragic aftereffects. Ian, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the U.S., terrorized millions for most of the week, battering western Cuba before raking across Florida from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, and then mustering a final assault on the Carolinas. With a death toll nearing three dozen, rescuers searched on Saturday for survivors among the Florida homes ruined by Hurricane Ian, while authorities and stunned residents in South Carolina began surveying their losses and assessing the damage from the powerful storm's strike there.
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