Death toll hits 21 in Florida as Hurricane Ian turns to South Carolina

Hurricane Ian made US landfall for a second time on Friday, reaching the coast of South Carolina after leaving a path of devastation across Florida.

At least 21 people have been reported dead in Florida after Ian tore across the peninsula, the state emergency director said, a tally that would make the storm the deadliest in the state’s history. Insured losses to property are likely to total $30bn-$40bn, according to S&P Global Ratings.

President Joe Biden said the storm “could rank among the worst in the nation’s history”, saying it would take months or years to rebuild. “It’s not just a crisis for Florida — it’s an American crisis,” he said.

Ian hit south-west Florida on Wednesday as a category 4 hurricane, knocking down homes and store fronts with powerful winds and surging waters before travelling across the peninsula to enter the Atlantic Ocean.

After weakening into a tropical storm, it regained hurricane strength before reaching the Carolinas, where the National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening storm surge inundation, flooding rains, and tropical storm force winds”. River floods were forecast to linger in central Florida until next week.

Florida’s number of reported deaths in the wake of the storm is higher than direct deaths attributed to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, previously the state’s most lethal cyclone which resulted in 15 people dying.

Global warming is changing the nature of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, causing them to be more frequent and intense because of the rise in global temperatures of at least 1.1C as a result of human activity since pre-industrial times.

On Friday morning, Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis said 1.9mn customers were still without electricity and half a dozen healthcare facilities had been evacuated because they lacked power and running water.

Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electric utility, said it had restored power for more than half of those affected, but warned of prolonged outages in the south-west as recovery crews were “hampered by extensive flooding, storm surge, downed trees and other debris in the area and roadways”. Some properties were so damaged they were “unable to safely accept power”, the company said.

The hurricane tore through multiple regions of the state, inflicting particular damage around Fort Myers, which was beset by severe flooding, as well as on inland areas such as Orlando. Ian also severed the only bridge connecting Sanibel Island to the Florida mainland, not far from Fort Myers.

S&P Global Ratings said insured losses would probably be closer to the high end of its $30bn-$40bn estimate. However, it said US insurance companies were well positioned to absorb the losses, while losses for global reinsurance groups should remain within their catastrophe budgets.

Cities along the south-western coast of Florida have been some of the fastest growing in the nation, with tens of thousands moving to the area over the past year.

More than 10,000 people moved into the region of Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Naples between 2019 and 2021, the biggest domestic influx into a local metro region in the entire country, according to the US Census. The area that includes Orlando received the second-largest migration.

Biden said he had responded to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster’s request to declare an emergency in the state, allowing the state to receive “immediate federal funding” and allowing the federal government to get supplies in and provide shelter if necessary.

The president said: “My message to the people of South Carolina is simple. Please listen to all the warnings and directions from local officials and follow their instructions.”