Death Toll Revised, Hurricane Ian Work Done In Record Time: DeSantis

NOKOMIS, FL — The restoration of power, water and other vital services that would normally take weeks in a hurricane-devastated region has been accomplished in a week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Thursday at the Pelican Alley Restaurant in Nokomis, a Gulf Coast town in Sarasota.

Stay up-to-date by viewing all Hurricane Ian coverage on Patch here.

DeSantis's news was greeted by enthusiastic applause from residents and business people whose lives have been turned upside-down by the damage Hurricane Ian caused a week ago.

The current official death toll attributed to Hurricane Ian in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Medical Examiners Commission Wednesday is officially 89 people. The victims include two in Charlotte, five in Collier, one in Hardee, four in Hendry, one in Hillsborough, one in Lake, 49 in Lee, three in Manatee, one in Martin, seven in Monroe, two in Polk, three in Putnam, five in Sarasota and five in Volusia counties.

By comparison, the death toll for Hurricane Michael was 77 people. That makes Hurricane Ian the deadliest hurricane since the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, which killed 409 people. The deadliest hurricane on record in Florida is the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, which killed more than 2,500 people.

On Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had a list of 10,000 people reported missing. FEMA said that number is quickly going down as those missing are located in shelters and are rescued.

DeSantis said of the four counties most affected by Hurricane Ian — Sarasota, Collier, Charlotte and Lee — Sarasota County has been one of the fastest to recover.

"We brought in Points of Distribution Sites, known as PODS, to all the affected areas to provide tarps, food, water and other resources within 36 to 48 hours," said DeSantis. "It normally takes a week to set up PODS. Now, Sarasota has asked us to close all its PODS and take them to other people who need them. That's a good sign."

Another indication that the region is returning to normalcy, said DeSantis, is the resumption of Friday night high school football games in Collier County and the staging of a Hurricane Ian relief concert by the Sarasota Orchestra Friday at 7 p.m. at Van Wezel Performing Arts Center.

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Even Pelican Alley Restaurant is staging a concert this weekend, although the restaurant is still making repairs and does not yet have internet service.

All revenue will go to The Suncoast Disaster Recovery Fund of Community Foundation of Sarasota County to provide relief to the hurricane victims in Charlotte, DeSoto, Sarasota and Manatee counties. The Patterson Foundation is matching individual donations up to $750,000.

To date, more than 1,000 members of search-and-rescue teams have knocked on nearly 80,000 doors and made 2,500 rescues, according to DeSantis, including 1,076 people rescued from flooded areas, 180 helicopter rescues and 78 people transported from a flooded elderly care facility.

In the midst of the grief, however, residents of Pine Island celebrated Wednesday when the causeway linking the island to Fort Myers was restored and a convoy of Publix grocery trucks carrying fresh food crossed it.

DeSantis noted that the causeway and bridge linking the island to the mainland had been destroyed in three places, cutting off the island's 9,000 residents from services.

DeSantis said the Florida Department of Transportation deployed an army of contractors who were able to repair the causeway in record time.

Now, contractors are working to do the same for Sanibel and Captiva Island, which are isolated from Fort Myers due to the destruction of the Sanibel Island Causeway.

"I don't want it (the causeway) out for a year on Sanibel," DeSantis said. "We're working to get it open in three weeks or however long it takes."

In the meantime, he's said he's in conversation with the military to use amphibious vehicles to transport utility trucks and supplies to Sanibel to get restore the island's power.

"When I toured Sanibel yesterday, there was massive debris and power lines down everywhere, so it's going to take a lot of TLC," he said. "There is a sense of urgency and we're working across the board on it."

To date, he said, the FDOT has cleared hurricane debris from more than 5,000 miles of roads, enabling "businesses to reopen in record time."

To restore drinking water to Fort Myers as quickly as possible, the state's emergency management director, Kevin Guthrie, said he recruited the St. Petersburg-based engineering company Power Design Inc., which was able to restore water service in 48 hours.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Shawn Hamilton said Guthrie has proven to be an unsung hero during this tragedy.

"There's normal, there's fast and then there's Guthrie," Hamilton joked. "He won't stop until he's made everything whole."

While some of the impacted counties have been able to reopen schools, said DeSantis, at least two schools were destroyed by the hurricane and others sustained substantial damage. He said the state is setting up PODS at the damaged schools so students can get back to class.

"I've been talking to some of the families that have been displaced and they really want the kids back at school and not in shelters all day," DeSantis said.

DeSantis expressed his gratitude for the outpouring of support he's seen from around the country, including a group of firefighters from Oregon he encountered in Hardee County.

The Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Team Rubicon, consisting of military veterans who respond to disasters around the world, was in Lee County Thursday helping to restore the storm-damaged home of a Vietnam veteran, DeSantis said.

And Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk repositioned 375 Starlink satellite internet devices so families with no internet or cell phone service could contact worried friends and family members.

The state has set up 11 fuel depots for first responders, dispensing 1.4 million gallons of fuel, and mobile fuel trucks have been deployed to Arcadia and Dunbar to support residents without access to fuel.

Additionally, 15 Florida counties as well as power companies from other states have sent more than 42,000 utility workers to the impacted areas to restore power.

There are still 210,770 reported power outages, but 92 percent of the 2.4 million power outages across the state have been restored, DeSantis said.

On Wednesday, a disaster recovery center offering assistance with Federal Emergency Management disaster relief funds, U.S. Small Business Association low-interest business loans and help with insurance claims opened in Fort Myers in a record six days, DeSantis said.

DeSantis said the state is now preparing to open four more centers in Sarasota, Collier and Charlotte counties.

To date, 278,000 people have registered with FEMA and qualified for more than $70 million in federal disaster relief funds.

Residents with roof damage can also apply for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Operation Blue Roof program, which provides fiber-reinforced sheeting to cover damaged roofs for free until repairs can be made.

Additionally, the Florida Disaster Fund established by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis has raised more than $37 million for hurricane victims, DeSantis said.

"This is money for people who fall through the cracks for FEMA or state programs," he said. "It's money that can go directly to people to help fix homes or to nonprofits like Team Rubicon to help fix the homes of elderly residents who can no longer do the work themselves."

Guthrie said he's been amazed at the collaboration between state, federal and private partners.

"It's everyone on deck," he said.

"And the effort to restore drinking water resources is nothing short of phenomenal," he said, noting that the majority of customers in the four impacted counties have had their drinking water restored. "They've accomplished what would normally takes weeks and months."

In the meantime, he said the state is deploying hundreds of pumps to lift stations to restore wastewater systems and the cleanup of a "historic" amount of storm debris is continuing.

Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Secretary Dane Eagle said he's been equally impressed at the resiliency of the business community, with many businesses reopening just days after the hurricane struck.

"I'm from Cape Coral, so I felt this with all of you, but the response has been monumental," he said.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, more than 2,000 businesses reported $300 million in damages. To help those businesses recover as quickly as possible, Eagle said the state is offering emergency bridge loans.

Additionally, DeSantis approved "cutting the red tape" for those who lost their jobs to get unemployment benefits including eliminating the need for jobseekers to register their job-hunting progress to the DEO.

This week's tax-free week for gasoline, approved by the 2022 Legislature, came at an ideal time, DeSantis said. Currently, Florida has the fifth-lowest gas prices in the country, he said.

"I actually saw some places where gas was $2.99," he said.

With the losses due to Hurricane Ian in combination with inflation, DeSantis said he is working with the Legislature to make the purchase of baby items and some household items permanently tax-free "to lessen the burden when you're in a period of runaway inflation."

He said he also plans to slash tolls on state toll roads by 50 percent.

"At the end of the day when the television cameras go away, it (the devastation) is still going to be real even months after it happened. We're in it for the long haul," he said.

"I've seen an incredible amount of resilience from people who lost their entire homes," DeSantis said. "There's no 'woe is me' here. The attitude at large is sometimes in life you get knocked down but the thing is, are you going to get back up?"