Ian Death Toll Hits 101 As Evacuees Return To Mud, Rubble

By AP
Posted on 10/06/22 | News Source: Associated Press

 Rotting fish and garbage lie scattered in Sanibel Island’s streets. On the mainland, debris from washed-away homes is heaped in a canal like matchsticks. Huge shrimp boats sit perched amid the remains of a mobile home park.

“Think of a snow globe. Pick it up and shake it — that’s what happened,” said Fred Szott.

For the past three days, he and his wife Joyce have been making trips to their damaged mobile home in Fort Myers, cleaning up after Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast.

As for the emotional turbulence, he says: “You either hold on, or you lose it.”

The number of storm-related deaths rose to at least 101 on Thursday, eight days after the storm made landfall in southwest Florida. According to reports from the Florida Medical Examiners Commission, 98 of those deaths were in Florida. Five people were also killed in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia.

Ian is the second-deadliest storm to hit the mainland United States in the 21st century, behind Hurricane Katrina, which left more than 1,800 people dead in 2005. The deadliest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. was the Great Galveston Hurricane in 1900 that killed as many as 8,000 people.