Pending emergency data, Biden expects Hurricane ‘Ian’ could be deadliest in all of history
‘Charlie’, ‘Irma’, ‘Andrew’… Fort Myers Fire Chief Tracy McMillion says he’s seen all the weather monsters that left their mark on Florida, “but none like this one.” When it slammed into Florida at 3 p.m. local time on Wednesday, ‘Ian’ was three times the size of ‘Charlie’, who has taken the crown of devastation so far. This was a much slower and more vicious hurricane, unleashing torrential rain mercilessly all night. And besides pushing a wave twelve times bigger than Charlie’s, it didn’t immediately penetrate the interior of the state, but moved slowly along the coast, sweeping away everything it found.
Despite all this and more, President Joe Biden anticipated this Thursday that it might be “the deadliest hurricane in state history,” although at the time, when “Ian” was still hitting Florida, only eight deaths were known in the United States. the areas more available. The hurricane had left widespread flooding, uprooting bridges and turning roads into accordions, preventing rescue teams from reaching the hardest-hit areas, which could only be seen from the air.
However, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno has already spoken of “hundreds of deaths” and Federal Emergency Service (FEMA) Director Deanne Criswell of “recovery”. Disaster recovery is a term used for dead bodies, once the rescue phase of civilians trapped in their homes or cars has been completed. That’s what the firefighters had been doing all night in the middle of an apocalyptic storm. Witnesses described the thunderous whistle of the wind as that of a freight train coming toward them in the middle of the night until it drove them mad.
‘Ian’ was in no hurry. It especially lured the barrier islands off the coast of Fort Myers. Instead of entering land through it, it slowly climbed up the coast, spewing out anything it found that turned to rubble. That’s what happened to Sanibel Island, “a paradise spot that has weathered a biblical storm,” lamented Governor Ron DeSantis. It was hard to find among this Thursday’s aerial footage.
The entire coast is now a trail of rubble with not a single house standing in between. Miles and miles of destruction left little room for hope. The hurricane had uprooted the buildings and after shaking them into the air, spat them out and turned them into a pile of rubble and wood.
Some of the porches seemed intact, but had no houses to give way to. Under such catastrophe, a few individuals emerged “who have been identified and brought in,” the governor said, without specifying whether they were corpses or survivors.
The city of Fort Myers had survived without a fatality, said the fire chief, who had spent the night answering desperate calls from those who decided to stay in their homes, against the evacuation order, or those who didn’t. escape. The water level rose rapidly, flooding the houses.
The area is home to many retirees who came to the Sunshine State in search of good weather and a generous tax code with their pensions. They were not houses designed to withstand the impact of a hurricane that, when it made landfall, was close to Category 5, becoming the fifth strongest in the country’s history. The sustained wind of 250 kilometers had no problem tearing away the wooden walls. The water rose in level through the channels the houses opened onto, so picturesque for photos of family lunches and so conducive to the rise to four and a half meters to submerge the houses.
Nearly three million people across Florida were still without electricity on Thursday, but 20,000 workers with crews from other states struggled to restore service, which will require emergency teams to reach the hardest-hit areas. McMillion, a seasoned Fort Myers fire chief, had his priorities. “The houses, the buildings, the bridges… we can bring all that back. People don’t.”
Source: La Verdad
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