Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was in the devastated town of Fort Myers Beach today to deliver an update on the aftermath from Hurrican Ian. Incredibly we are ten days post storm while search teams are still conducting operations to locate and recover bodies. The collapsed and unstable buildings are very challenging and rescue workers are almost always kept out of unstable buildings. {Direct Rumble Link}
Fort Myers beach is about 7 miles long (+/-) and about a half to three-quarters of a mile wide (average), a large percentage of the compacted homes have still not been searched. It’s not the distance of the damage taking time to search, it’s the actual scale of the damage in this zone. So many structures collapsed and flooded with storm surge. WATCH (remarks begin at 7:15 of video):
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[Florida Gov] TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis traveled to Fort Myers Beach to give updates on recovery efforts in areas that have been impacted by Hurricane Ian. Floridians continue to show resiliency through communities coming together to help each other. Full remarks can be found here.
Governor DeSantis was joined by local officials to announce that access has been cleared for residents to return to Fort Myers Beach. Portable showers and restrooms were brought in for residents to use while the clean their homes. Governor DeSantis was also joined by Eric Silagy, CEO of Florida Power and Light (FPL) to give an update on the progress they have made in restoring power to their customers. FPL has already restored power to 99% of the households they cover in Lee County and Southwest Florida that can receive power.
On Wednesday, Governor DeSantis announced that bridge repairs were completed in record time to restore access to Pine Island. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has teams working around the clock on the Sanibel Causeway, the last barrier island to restore access to, and work is expected to finish by the end of the month.
Additionally, Governor DeSantis highlighted local efforts to aid residents in debris clean up and reiterated FDOT and the Division of Emergency Management’s commitment to help with additional resources as needed. Panama City Mayor Greg Brudnicki and his team will be traveling to the impacted areas to help oversee cleanup and recovery. Just four years ago, his community was hit by Hurricane Michael and Mayor Brudnicki will be providing his knowledge to help southwest Florida navigate their community rebuild.
There are currently 69,009 reported power outages. More than 42,000 linemen have already restored power to over 2.6 million accounts across the state, representing over 97% of accounts restored since the peak. There are currently 11 fueling depot stations open statewide, and mobile fuel trucks have been deployed to Arcadia and Dunbar to support residents without access to fuel.
First Lady Casey DeSantis announced that the Florida Disaster Fund has raised nearly $40 million since activation. To read more info, click here. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
Additionally, the First Lady has worked with the State Disaster Recovery Mental Health Coordinator, Sara Newhouse, to compile a webpage of resources to help first responders navigate resources for mental health needs post hurricane. To visit the site, click here. Mental health resources for individuals and communities are available at MyFLFamilies.com/HurricaneIan. Floridians’ health and well-being are a top priority, and the Department of Children and Families is reminding individuals that they are not alone. All Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian can find someone to talk to today through the Disaster Distress Helpline by calling 800-985-5990.
Safe and found persons can be reported safe at http://safe.fl.gov.
Additional programs that have been put into place to aid communities include the activation of the Florida Small Business Emergency Bridge Loan Program, the initiation of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Operation Blue Roof, and FDOT’s diligent work to construct temporary bridges into areas that are cut off from motorists. First Lady Casey DeSantis, Volunteer Florida and Tervis have created a design with Florida imagery for a new tumbler product. With every sale of this tumbler, all proceeds will go to the Florida Disaster Fund. Products are available for purchase on the Tervis website HERE and will soon be available in stores for purchase.
State response efforts include:
Search and Rescue
- There have been 2,500 rescues made to date.
- There are more than 1,000 team members performing search and rescue.
- DCF has created a First Responder Support Line (407-823-1657) that all first responders throughout the impacted areas can contact. This line combines current resources into a single point of contact that will connect first responders with mental health professionals.
- The Missouri Task Force 1 Disaster Situational Assessment and Reconnaissance (DSAR) Team is deploying to Florida through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact to support urban search and rescue efforts and incident assessment.
- A Florida Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Team deployed to Central Florida to support state USAR Task Forces and incident assessment.
- Task Force engineering resources have also been deployed to assist with route clearance in Pine Island and Charlotte County. The FLNG has cleared 51.5 miles to date in the impacted area. Guardsmen continue to assist law enforcement with roving patrols, security, traffic control and curfew enforcement missions.
- Following Governor DeSantis’ authorization, Joint Task Force Florida has 4,351 personnel activated and is executing missions in response to Hurricane Ian. The Florida National Guard has supported a total of 246 missions.
- (read more)
May God bless the governor and the teams working to restore Florida back to normal. May the people turn to the Lord for their strength.
Amen 🙏
Amen🙏🏻
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/florida-sheriff-grady-judd-highly-suggest-looter-breaks-home-shoot-looks-like-grated-cheese-video/
-Florida Sheriff Grady Judd: “I Would Highly Suggest if a Looter Breaks Into Your Home… Shoot Him so He Looks Like Grated Cheese” (VIDEO)
I love that guy!
Common sense.
Amen. We love our incredible Governor DeSantis!
Dang, I thought It’d be more than about $4 million a day on the donation front. I have sent quite a bit of freeze dried Mountain House food as well as half my stash of doomsday flushable baby wipes down south via Love Chevrolet in Citrus County. I am trying to find a trustworthy outfit to run heavy equipment down there to assist and maybe even put a few dollars in my pocket in the process, but having been burned by contractors I busted my ass for during hurricane cleanup after Ivan hit Texas I am twice shy about hitching wagons to just anybody.
Have you contacted Mercury One or Samaritan’s Purse?
They might be able to help you help others.
Now THAT’S how you lead the way back! We need more of that across this country.
Praying for all souls departed because of Ian,and those whose lives will forever be effected from it’s wrath.
Giving thanks for responders assisting in the rescue and recovery of everyone hurt and for helping with the cleanup from the storm.
Thank you Sundance for the updates,your selfless dedication to those in need,and for Ad Rem,Menagerie,Stella and WeeWeed for “holding down the fort” while you’re unavailable.
Blessings to all…through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Amen 🙏🏻
Amen, my friend.
“But mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty.”
~~Psalm 93:4~~
Some of the electrical crews were in Morehead City NC today, probably on their way back to their homes. Dozens of electric trucks in the parking lot at one of the fast food restaurants. God Bless these guys that they run to the troubled areas and don’t back down. And of course, God Bless Sundance who works so hard during these terrible events even in the face of his own losses.
They are all awesome.
This is an amazing effort going on there. It’s stunning how quickly roads have been cleared and bridges built/repaired. Thank you tobour SD for assisting!
Patriot,
Florida is showing the rest of us how it is SUPPOSED to be done! I’m still going to laugh at the craziness of the “Florida Man” funnies, but it’s abundantly clear now that there is an inordinately large number of incredibly competent heroes living in Florida. May God bless all of you dealing with this disaster!
There is a good lesson in the first part of that last video. When you know a hurricane is coming five days ahead of time put on sturdy shoes
The most important lesson from that last video is that when a huge Cat 4 bordering on 5 hurricane is bearing down on you, you get the hell off the beach! For Lord’s sake, have some common sense.
Hurricane Ian was originally predicted to make landfall in Tampa. The evening before it made landfall, the Hurricane unexpectedly veered east, which landed it well south of Tampa.
Residents in Ft Meyers were not expecting to see the full fury of the eye wall until the storm veered off course the night before. These residents had hours, not days, to brace for the worst impact.
That’s not true. For at least 2 days before landfall the center of the cone was between Tampa and Fort Myers. The cone itself included both Tampa and Ft Myers.
The Weather Channel and the Hurricane Center have always told people that are in the cone to make preparations and evacuate if necessary. Those that failed to do so, well it’s on them.
there’s a difference between being in the eye, and being in the cone. Tampa is a good 130 miles from Ft Myers, so i don’t question anyone’s judgement. I was there, and local news did not project a hit on Ft Myers until the night before. They were all broadcasting from Tampa
Hurricane force winds can span out many miles from the eye. Also, feeling the worst effects depends on what side of the storm you are in too.
No. The cone is the area the eye could be. The wind and surge impact area extends outward from that, so well beyond the cone accounting for the real possibility the eye is on the edge of the cone.
Sorry, this storm was 500 miles in diameter before landfall with hurricane force winds extending at least 200 miles across. They always say that storm damage may occur outside the cone. For something this big and intense, they should have evacuated. Now, if they waited until 2 days before, the roads may have been a bit crowded. Barrier islands are always evacuated throughout Florida because those roads called causeways can not be traversed by ER vehicles when winds reach 50 mph.
Before a Tampa hit was forecast, they said it would come ashore at Cedar Key.
Hurricanes often make a last minute jog before landfall. They were all under a hurricane warning.
They were in the cone. Makes them a target. No excuse.
Florida, my 35 year career was in Emergency Management throughout the US. You folks from the Governor and First Lady all the way to the last volunteer are doing an amazing job in very stressful and dangerous situations. I have never seen such a well thought out and executed plan as this response. May God Bless each and everyone of you. Prayers 🙏🏻✝️🙏🏻
In many other states recovery can be slow and time consuming because the focus is on first restoring the feeding trough.
….the feeding trough for politicians.
Thank you Sundance, for the update. Thinking of you and all Floridans. May grace continue to flourish!!
You don’t belong here
Then you should be there helping, not complaining how those who are doing it are doing.
The Feds, bureaucrats, and FEMA must be stunned and shellshocked at the swiftness of action and progress. Most of what I read in the article was Florida helping Florida. States rock when run as they were intended by our wise founders.
DeSantis isn’t giving any of the woke bureaucrats in FEMA a chance to pull the rug out from under him. Also, he’s just a damn good administrator regardless.
This is one of the most amazing, well organized and energized responses to a massive disaster that I can recall. Yes, it is in my home, my backyard, and much struggle continues. But the size and scale of the disaster would render many states helpless for a much longer time. I commend our great Governor and his strong team, along with other state and local officials, companies, volunteers, for such amazing work.
Totally agree. California won’t be pretty if something like this happens.
When, not if, the big one hits San Andreas again,
and all the power and water lines are destroyed,
and the bridges come down,
it will be like Katrina.
Probably worse.
BoBo,
Bet on it. That is one thing you can take to the bank. California government, except where it comes to theft and corruption, is an absolute nightmare. Their laws handicap them worse than a roll of duct tape around the arms, ankles, thighs and eyes.
There is no time to prepare for an Earthquake. If the structure is not built to withstand one and gets hit hard, it collapses. Really can’t compare the two.
Lori,
I fully expect any effort by California state government to get anything sorted after a major disaster in their state will do nothing but exacerbate an already bad situation. Those people make Hogan’s Goat look like a paragon of organizational efficiency!
Even in the midst of commiserating with the self-reliant folks of Florida caught in the throes of a mind numbing hurricane disaster, some on this site can’t resist the giddy self-righteousness of a cheap shot at California. Thank you!
I was there for the Northridge quake and they did OK.
I was still there for the Lone Pine 7.3 Earthquake of 2019……a whole lot of structural shaking but not too much damage relatively except for the two “local” High Schools and one middle school…..China Lake NWS did take over $1B in damage though
“Incredibly we are ten days post storm while search teams are still conducting operations to locate and recover bodies.”
Interesting to compare to Katrina.
I’m busy and not reading the news as much as usual, but still perusing it. Not sure if I’m missing something, but Ian seems almost invisible.
High death count? The only thing I heard about that was an early, somewhat mocking, report about a sheriff who said the death count would be high. To hear that fact is true is not common knowledge in current news reports.
God bless all of you. May he provide you everything you need.
The death count is not high yet. They can not send search teams into the worst of the destruction. Halves of several islands are full of debris from broken homes and vehicles that are not safe for them to access yet. The death toll will not be pretty. Too many islanders did not evacuate. On the other hand, the ability to rescue 2500 so far is a testament to the excellent efforts by the rescue teams.
The effort and execution of well laid disaster plans is very impressive. FL has had plenty of experience to pull from when making this all work efficiently, but this is even much more extensive excellent work on the part of thousands of people. Kudos to Governor DeSantis and his team.
For those interested, the latest stats on the power outages: https://poweroutage.us/area/state/florida
Sarasota County is reporting 0–yes, zero outages! The remaining outages are showing from the Lee County Co-Op–From what I can tell, they have made significant progress.; and a few from Duke Energy in the area.
If you scroll to the bottom you can see by carrier.
If you hover over a county you can see # tracked vs. outages.
If you click on the county you can see the # tracked, outages, and carrier.
For being 10 days out, this is pretty incredible. It was well over 2M a week ago Wednesday. God bless the linemen and their support systems (people, that is). I pray God keeps them safe as they go into the deeper, more troubled areas, in Jesus’ Name, Amen and Amen.
I was particularly moved by Sundance’s mention of the effort to have mental health support for first responders. Thank you for making me aware and prayers are set in motion here, as well.
Terrier,
That was good thinking about the mental health support for first responders. Those people see, hear, touch and smell things that the rest of us wouldn’t wish in our worst enemy’s nightmares. They NEED some help because some things you just find it really hard to get over.
Ya think a democrat administration could have pulled this off? Asking for a friend.
Call my cynical, but I think a demonrat administration would be extending the recover as much as possible for the “Never let a crisis go to waste” support of climate change.
Just look at Puerto Rico if you have any doubts about leftists’ recovery time vs. Gov. DeSantis’ recovery time.
EXACTLY!
IMO – The Democrat pattern is to prioritize profit and politics – to make sure Democrat donors get all the contracts and to make sure bribes, kickbacks are maximum $$$.
New Orleans and Houston have gotten big government bucks to remedy flood problems – but levees are still in bad shape around there – because of corruption and criminal theft of those $$$
Just look at BLM – and how BLM used the money on mansions.
Betcha Big Stacy Abrams has lots of corruption and financial mi$deed$ hidden by the media.
Stacey Abrams has a company that assisted in the vote tampering in Georgia.
It’s a temp agency called “Happy Faces”. We have one branch of it here in Tucker,
next to the post office. Hmmm, didn’t think of the usefullness of the location until
I finished that sentence.
Anyway, Happy Faces was a rather run down, seedy looking building a few years ago.
Now the building has been fully renovated, with the requisite hipster board fencing
next to it, nice landscaping, etc.
Wonder how they got the money? s/
do you really wonder?…..her company supplies “election workers” to assist in the management of elections…..she did manage to pay off nearly $250k in personal debt since her last election cycle
Exactly what Kamala Harris suggested in her color oriented ER response.
Just ponder the Gilliam administrations response to Ian if he had been installed. Florida I think, at least my kids that live there, realize the gift they have in Desantis.
Buckwheat,
I suspect you would have been hard put to break him away from his drugs and boytoys. Probably would have required a crowbar!
If it weren’t and Election year, joetato woulda left us to our own devices.
We had a hurricane. OBiden immediately goes to Puerto Rico.
I did not have that on my BINGO card.
…and whining about lack of help when Congress and PDJT appropriated over $85B in aid to help them “recover” from the last hurricane including over $60B to completely rebuild their electrical grid which just collapsed again less than 4 years later and they are giving an estimate of ANOTHER $40B to repair it
Floridians showing America how to be GREAT.
God Bless all of you.
Would you believe all of these miracles are being wrought without the help of the U.S. Government? Yep, I sure would.
I think the governors of states in the paths of angry Mother Nature would be wise to take a look at Florida’s disaster/survival plan.
Look at % of money set aside, the number and details of restoral contracts with energy companies and so on.
Who/whatever group in charge of keeping Florida’s disaster/recovery plans current/updated did a bang up job.
State FEMA along with trained and ready CERT teams help in any disaster……coordination, cooperation, and communication are key in any disaster to get the recovery rolling as fast as possible
Wonder if Sundance has become a believer in DeSantis yet?
SD has stated his beliefs…..he thinks RDS is doing a fine job as governor but is an establishment candidate in the mold of Jeb Bush when looking at a POTUS run
Sundance has ALWAYS supported DeSantis as governor.
I am surprised normal buildings get built in Florida.
If people insist on living in Flordia, surely some very special construction technology needs to be done.
A few possibilities;
De Santis is still a Cultural MAGA RINO but he is at least competent and God Bless the souls of the deceased and the courage of the survivors.
Ian was almost a cat 5, there are no homes that can withstand a cat 5 and/or the tornadoes they spin.
Floating homes are called boats. Count all of them crumpled on roof tops.
Portable homes are called RVs and mobile homes. A fair number of these are crumpled on roof tops.
Individuals could evacuate in RVs and mobile homes and that would be good. But, plenty of people had this option and did not.
Homes have stuff in them that people want to preserve. The RVs and mobile homes would help with that.
Homes built of cinder block and metal roofs did better than the other options in the hardest hit areas, but, they were not undamaged.
Amazing job done by all. God Bless them! I can’t imagine living there and going through this every few years. These people are a lot stronger than I am! We put up with an occasional snowstorm or severe thunderstorms, but we don’t have to evacuate or come home to total destruction like this. Very tough for them.
DeSantis is about to be conned by OBiden. Hundreds of illegals being bused to Florida. While Americans are volunteering- illegals will be paid $15 hr++++
https://www.ibtimes.com/dozens-migrants-headed-florida-hurricane-ian-clean-paid-15–hour-3619608