The U.S. Coast Guard began performing hurricane rescue missions on barrier islands off southwest Florida early Thursday, as soon as the winds died down, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference.
DeSantis said there nearly 30 Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters from the Coast Guard and National Guard that were leading the missions, with more helicopters expected.
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"The Coast Guard had people who were in their attics and got saved off their rooftops,” DeSantis said.
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DeSantis said the rescue missions began around 1 a.m. The most vulnerable areas were along the barrier islands of Lee, Charlotte and Collier counties, along with inlets and inland areas along rivers.
"This is still a hazardous situation, those folks that were in there in the wee hours of the morning were taking big risks as first responders navigating this," DeSantis said. "You have power lines that are down, you have trees that are down, you have a lot of hazards right now."
Coast Guard officials said Thursday afternoon that they had already rescued 39 people.
DeSantis said at least two deaths were reportedly related to Ian in Florida.
Power failures from Hurricane Ian are significant, he said. Two counties, Lee and Charlotte, "are basically off the grid at this point,” the governor said, and will likely have to rebuild the power structure.
“We’ve never seen storm surge of this magnitude,” DeSantis said. “The amount of water that’s been rising, and will likely continue to rise today even as the storm is passing, is basically a 500-year flooding event.”
An earlier report of hundreds of deaths in Lee County has not been confirmed and was likely an estimate based on 911 calls, the governor said.
DeSantis and President Joe Biden spoke by telephone Thursday morning to discuss next steps in the federal response to Hurricane Ian.
Biden formally issued a disaster declaration Thursday morning and told DeSantis that he was dispatching Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell to Florida on Friday to check in on response efforts and to gauge where additional support will be needed.
"The impacts of this storm are historic, and the damage that was done has been historic," DeSantis said. "We've never seen a flood event like this, we've never seen storm surge of this magnitude."
