The death toll from Hurricane Ian has risen to at least 12, with a massive rescue effort underway to retrieve more people in devastated Lee County and elsewhere.
Charlotte County officials told MSNBC Thursday afternoon at least six people were confirmed dead in the city of Punta Gorda, and later added another death elsewhere in the county. A spokesperson for the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said in the evening that there were two storm-related deaths there, while there was also a confirmed death in the Volusia County city of Deltona.
Officials on Lee County's Sanibel Island, which has been cutoff to mainland transportation after multiple breeches to the Sanibel Island Causeway, said that two people on the island had died. The only way to get to and from the island is by boat.
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“You’re looking at a storm that has changed the character of a significant part of our state,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier Thursday. “This is going to require years of effort to rebuild."
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told Good Morning America earlier Thursday that the region was devastated by the storm and that he believed there to be hundreds of fatalities. (Lee County includes Fort Myers, Sanibel and Cape Coral.)
But he later heavily tempered those comments in an interview with MSNBC's Morning Joe.
"I know we have had some deceased – I don’t know the number," the sheriff said, adding that an assessment was ongoing.
In the case of Sanibel, the route on and off the island was destroyed by the storm, complicating those efforts.
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As of 6 a.m. Thursday, more than 2 million utility customers are without power in the state. Both Lee and Charlotte counties are off the grid entirely and will likely need their electrical infrastructure to be completely rebuilt, DeSantis said.
