State of horror
Destruction among the worst in U.S. history
Florida and the Carolinas yesterday faced a huge clean-up operation after Hurricane Ian brought further devastation to America.
One of the most powerful storms to hit the US mainland has already caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and has killed dozens of people.
There were at least 35 deaths that have been attributed to the hurricane in Florida’s Lee County alone.
Many of those killed were elderly citizens.
Thousands of people were still unaccounted for, officials said, but many of them were likely in shelters or without power.
Ian, now a post- tropical cyclone, continued to weaken yesterday morning but is still forecast to bring treacherous conditions to parts of the Central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Centre.
The NHC added that f lood watches were in effect across south- west Virg inia and southern West Virginia.
The storm touched down on Florida’s Gul f Coast on Wednesday, turning beach towns into disaster areas.
On Friday, it pummeled waterfront Georgetown, north of the historic city of Charleston in South Carolina, with wind speeds of 85mph. More than 1.6million homes and businesses were without power in the Carolinas, Virginia and Florida on Saturday.
“Those older homes that just aren’t as strong built, they got washed into the sea,” Governor Ron DeSantis said on Friday.
He added: “If you are hunkering down in that, that is something I think would be very difficult to be survivable.”
Meanwhile, insurers were braced for a hit of between £25billion and £42billion, in what could be the costliest Florida storm since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
US president Joe Biden has approved a disaster declaration, making federal resources available to counties affected.
He said: “We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction. It’s likely to rank among the worst … in the nation’s history.”
Biden also declared an emergency in North Carolina yesterday.