Death Toll From Hurricane Ian Tops 100 In Florida

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The death toll from Hurricane Ian topped 100 in Florida, according to CNN. On Monday (October 3), Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said that more than half of the deaths in the state were in Lee County, which took the brunt of the Category 4 storm when it made landfall last week.

Since Sunday, search and rescue teams conducted over 1,600 operations, reducing more than 4,000 people who found themselves stranded as Ian flooded roadways, knocked out bridges, and downed trees across the state.

Over 600,000 people remain without power as crews work around the clock to assess and repair the damage.

"The amount of water that we received and the height of the surge affected a lot of the infrastructure," Jay Boodheshwar, city manager of Naples, told CNN. "So there are transformers that are fried. It is not simply rehanging lines. There are things that may need to be replaced."

While it's been just under a week since Ian made landfall, Floridians continue to deal with flooding as the water levels of many rivers continue to rise.

"The sandy soil in Florida can absorb light to moderate amounts of rain rather quickly, but when you get rainfall of 1-2 feet, even that can be overwhelmed," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski explained. "It can take a long time for that to drain off."


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