Death toll hits 30 over 3 states

ISLAMORADA, Fla. — The nursinghome tragedy brought the death toll from Hurricane Irma in the continental United States to at least 30 on Wednesday.

At least 23 have died in Florida, four in South Carolina and three in Georgia, officials said.

Meanwhile, anxious evacuees from the Florida Keys tried to return to their storm-ravaged homes.

Many Keys residents still aren’t allowed to return.

“We can’t get in the way of emergency vehicles and cleanup crews and everything like that,” Sam Nuccio, of Big Pine Key, told CBS News.

He drove down to check on his home but was stopped at a checkpoint and had to turn around.

Others in the Keys were coping with the grim reality that they had nothing left.

“My mom lost everything. She lost her pictures, her baby stuff, everything that she owns is gone,” Taylor Hilton, who lives in Seabreeze Trailer Park in Islamorada, told The Post.

“The water came all the way up to my shoulders. During the storm, we went all the way up north. We came back into the Keys today and my mom is devastated — absolutely devastated.”

Trailer-park residents complained of people looting overnight — and struggled to find their belongings amid all the debris.

About 3.5 million customers are still without power in Florida, along with 63,000 in South Carolina and nearly 600,000 in Georgia.

Monroe County officials say water service is slowly being restored in the Keys, and all 42 bridges linking the islands in the archipelago have been inspected and “deemed safe for vehicles.”

“MORE WATER IS COMING” officials assured Keys residents in a Facebook post Wednesday morning.

In Marathon Key, a Publix grocery store opened under police guard, and shoppers were allowed to buy only 20 items each — and no cigarettes or alcohol, said 70-year-old retiree Elaine Yaquinto.