Power has now been almost fully restored in North Carolina | Elon Musk has made his Starlink network available to the US
The authorities of Florida reported this Saturday 53 deaths from the Hurricane Ian while the governor of North Carolina reported four confirmed deaths from the powerful cyclone, which has not yet left any fatalities in South Carolina.
According to the Florida Medical Forensic Commission, as of this Saturday, 53 deaths had been reported by Ian, the largest number of them in Lee County, on the southwest coast of this state, the most impacted area and where The hurricane made landfall last Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 240 km/h.
For his part, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper reported today that Four deaths have been registered so far, three of them due to vehicle accidents occurred on Friday due to the weather conditions produced by Ian, which that day made landfall in neighboring South Carolina and shortly after it was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone.
No deaths have been reported in that state, according to its governor, Henry McMaster, who said that electricity has been almost fully restored. “There’s some damage, some heartbreak, there’s work to be done. But overall, it’s a good story,” McMaster summed up.
In Florida, on the other hand, the story is very different, where this Saturday, three days after the impact of the cyclone,More than 10,000 people still remain in shelters erected by the authoritiesofficials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) displaced in the area told the media.
They added that they continue to carry out rescue operations for people who are still trapped in their homesespecially on the islands of Sanibel and the town of Latchala, where there is still no drinking water, electricity or basic infrastructure.
One of Ian’s survivors was George Luty, a resident of the Oyster Bay mobile park on San Carlos Island, which is part of Fort Myers Beach.
This 44-year-old man told Efe that had to dive to escape his flooded home as a consequence of the rise in sea level (in parts up to more than four meters) due to storm surge.
“I crouched on my porch for hours, never in my life was I so scared. I really thought I was going to die”he confessed.
According to data from the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as of this morning, more than a thousand rescues had been carried out.
In Lee County, where these communities and the entire Fort Myers area are located, and where authorities today reported 35 deaths, 73% of its population was still without electricity until this noonalthough the restoration process is done at an accelerated pace, as DeSantis said.
Executives from FPL, the main energy company in Florida, said that in the first 48 hours after the impact of the hurricane the light restoration process has surpassed what they achieved five years agowhen Hurricane Irma hit this state and the firm reached a record.
Elon Musk makes his Starlink network available to the US
The Governor of Florida announced today that the firm SpaceX, owned by tycoon Elon Musk, has made available to this state your Starlink satellite network to help connect to the internetand that you have donated the cost associated with this coverage.
He added that they have been taken to Southwest Florida more than 1.6 million liters of gasoline and that more than 1,300 miles of tracks have been opened.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted thate the post-tropical cyclone can produce up to 100 milliliters of rain today over the center of the Appalachian Mountains, that is, in areas of Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia, where flooding and strong gusts of wind can occur.
Meteorologists estimate that Ian could dissipate in the course of this afternoon or eveningwhile moving over the state of Virginia.