FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Dozens of Florida residents left their flooded and damaged homes by boat and air Saturday as rescuers continued to search for survivors in after Hurricane Janwhile authorities in South Carolina and North Carolina began counting their losses.
The death toll from the storm, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the US, has risen to more than four dozen, with 47 deaths confirmed in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba. The storm weakened on Saturday as it barreled toward the mid-Atlantic, but not before it washed away bridges and piers, drove massive boats into waterfront buildings and blew roofs off homes, leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
The bulk of the deaths have been confirmed in Florida were from drowning in storm waters, but others from the tragic consequences of John. The elderly couple died when their electricity went out and their oxygen machines went off, authorities said.
As of Saturday, more than 1,000 people had been rescued from flooded areas along Florida’s southwest coast alone, Daniel Hokanson, a four-star general and head of the National Guard, told The Associated Press while he was in the air in Florida.
Later in the evening, the White House announced that President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden would travel to Florida on Wednesday. No other details of Biden’s visit have been released.
Chris Schnapp was at the Port Sanibel Marina in Fort Myers Saturday, waiting to see if her 83-year-old mother-in-law had been evacuated. Sanibel Island. A pontoon boat had arrived with a cargo of passengers from the island—with suitcases and animals in tow—but Schnapp’s mother-in-law was not among them.
“She stayed on the island. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law own two businesses there. They evacuated. She didn’t want to go,” Schnapp said. Now, she said, she wasn’t sure if her mother-in-law was still on the island or if she had been taken to a shelter somewhere.
On Pine Island, the largest barrier island off Florida’s Gulf Coast, homes were reduced to rubble and boats littered the roads as a volunteer rescue team went door-to-door asking residents if they wanted to evacuate. People described the horror would be trapped in their homes as the water continued to rise.
“The water kept hitting the house and we watched, boats, houses – we watched everything go by,” Joe Conforti said, fighting back tears. He said that if it wasn’t for his wife who suggested they stand on the table to avoid the water rising, he wouldn’t have made it: “I started to lose my senses because when the water is in your door and splashes on the door and you see how fast they move, there’s no way you’ll survive it.”
Flooded rivers sometimes became a serious problem for rescue and delivery of goods. The Miakka River washed out a section of Interstate 75, forcing the roaring highway to be closed for a time. The key corridor connects Tampa in the north with the hard-hit region of Southwest Florida that is besieging Port Charlotte and Fort Myers. Later Saturday, state officials said the water level had receded enough that I-75 could be fully reopened.
Although water levels in southwest Florida’s rivers have reached or are near their crest, levels are not expected to drop significantly for several days, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tyler Fleming in Tampa.
Elsewhere, Pauley Island in South Carolina – a beach community about 75 miles (115 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston – was one of the hardest hit. At least half of the island remained without electricity on Saturday.
Eddie Wilder, who has been coming to Pawleys Island for more than six decades, said Friday’s storm was “crazy.” He said waves of up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) washed away the local pier, an iconic landmark.
“We watched it hit the pier and saw the pier disappear,” said Wilder, whose home 30 feet (9 meters) above the ocean remained dry inside. “We watched it break down and watched it float by with an American flag.”
Pawley Pier was one of at least four along the South Carolina coast destroyed by high winds and rain. Meanwhile, the Intracoastal Waterway was littered with the remains of several houseboats knocked off their moorings.
John Joseph, whose father built the beige beach house for the family in 1962, said Saturday he was glad to be back from Georgetown — which took a direct hit. He found his home on Pawley Island completely intact.
“Thank God, those walls are still here, and we feel very blessed that this is the worst,” he said of the sand that swept under his home. “What happened in Florida – God, God bless us. If we had the 4th category, I wouldn’t be here.”
In North Carolina, the storm claimed four lives and mostly downed trees and power lines, leaving more than 280,000 people without power across the state Saturday morning, officials said. Outages eased a few hours later as crews worked to restore power.
Two deaths in North Carolina were the result of storm-related car crashes, while officials said one person drowned when his truck plunged into a swamp and another died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator that exploded in a garage.
At the Port Sanibel Marina in Fort Myers, charter captain Ryan Kane inspected the damage to two boats Saturday. Several boats and a dock were washed ashore by the storm surge. He said the boat he owned was wrecked so he couldn’t use it to rescue people. Now, he said, it will be a long time before he charters fishing customers again.
“There is a hole in the case. Needed water in the engines. Everything needed water,” he said, adding, “You know boats should be in the water, not in the docks.”
Kinard reported from Pawley’s Island, South Carolina; Associated Press contributors include Frida Frisaro in Miami; Brandon Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida; Gerald Herbert in Pine Island, Florida; Mike Pezzoli in Lehigh Acres, Florida; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia; and Amy Forlitti in Minneapolis.