Search and Rescue crews rallied at the Fort Myers Sports Complex and have been running operations for the past 5 hours.įlorida National Guard members are conducting incident awareness and assessment missions this morning in Sarasota, De Soto, Charlotte, Collier and Lee Counties. The National Guard and the Coast Guard are landing helicopters on barrier islands to perform search and rescue. There are 8 USAR teams with more than 800 team members performing search and rescue. Urban Search and Rescue Team 2 was the first on-site and the Coast Guard made dozens of rescues overnight. Since 1 a.m., search and rescue operations have been underway. The FDOT said this about search and rescue operations across the state: “Basically you are looking at a 500-year flood event,” he said. He said the Coast Guard had been performing rescue missions on the barrier islands continually overnight.ĭeSantis said major flooding is expected in Central Florida, especially in Orange and Seminole counties. “We’re obviously hoping that they can be rescued at this point.” I’m gonna go up in the attic but I’m really worried.’ Of course those folks are now again to be going to be checked on, and so I think you’ll have more clarity about that in the next day or so,” DeSantis said.
I think what that is is there were 911 calls for people saying, ‘Hey, the water is rising in my home. Lee County was ground zero for Hurricane Ian’s landfall on Wednesday afternoon.ĭeSantis, though, said at this point there were only two unconfirmed fatalities in the state. While searching for him, deputies found his flashlight, then spotted the victim unresponsive in a canal behind the home,” according to a press release from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.Įarlier Thursday, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told ABC’s “Good Morning America” he expected deaths from the storm to be in the hundreds. after the victim’s wife reported he disappeared after heading outside. “Deputies responded to a home on Poinciana Lane near Lake Bethel around 1 a.m. Volusia County law enforcement reported an overnight death of a 72-year-old Deltona man who had gone outside during the storm to drain his pool. Wednesday when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a pickup truck.Īfter a death is confirmed to be hurricane-related, district medical examiners report the death to the Florida Medical Examiners Commission, which is staffed by the FDLE. The FDLE had no further information, but a Florida Highway Patrol report said a man from Howey-In-The-Hills was driving east on County Road 48 12:30 p.m. Two hospitals were forced to divert patients because of flooding, Sullivan said.Ī 38-year-old Lake County man who died when his car hydroplaned is listed as the first official fatality of Hurricane Ian, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has confirmed.
The National Guard is staging at Silver Spurs Arena. “It is widespread, and it is as levels we have not seen before in my time here and many other people’s time here,” he said.Ĭounty officials are requesting state and federal assistance. Ian produced unprecedented flooding in Osceola County, Sullivan said.
It’s unknown how many people didn’t evacuate, but deputies offered everyone a chance to leave, Sullivan said.Īll the assisted-living residents who are the most vulnerable evacuated, he said. About 1,300 people live at Good Samaritan Society’s Kissimmee Village, which is vulnerable to flooding. The airboat ferried two residents using a walker and their two dogs to dry ground. “Charlotte and Lee reconnects are really going to likely have to be rebuilding of that infrastructure.”įlooding is widespread in Osceola County, and rescues are underway, said Andrew Sullivan, a spokesman for Osceola County Fire Rescue.Īt a 55-and-up community in Kissimmee, first responders used an airboat to rescue people who were trapped in knee-to-waist deep floodwaters. “Lee and Charlotte are basically off the grid at this point,” DeSantis said noting power restoration will take time. Southwest Florida outages continue to be the hardest hit, but about 800,000 people were without power in Central Florida. Rain totals approaching 20 inches were forecast across parts of the peninsula prompting flash flood warnings across Central Florida while more than 2.6 million people were without power across the state at 1 p.m., according to.
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