Florida Faces Hundreds Dead and Tens of Billions in Damage From Hurricane Ian

Hundreds possibly dead. Millions without power. And the only question about property damage is how many billions it will run.

When Hurricane Ian landed in Cayo Costa, Florida—winds only 2 mph short of a Category 5 storm and storm surges of up to 12 feet—it was the beginning of a slow disastrous march across the center of the state. Governor Ron DeSantis already requested a White House major disaster declaration “for all 67 counties, for all categories, and all types of assistance, due to the ongoing devastating impacts of Hurricane Ian.”

He also requested that President Biden authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide 100% federal cost share for debris removal and emergency protective measures for the next 60 days. Typically, such requests don’t take place until there are official disaster assessments, according to Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.

Restoring power to the 23% of accounts statewide—more than 2.5 million—that were without as of 9am Thursday morning will be difficult. The CEO of Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electric utility, said the company was braced for parts of its service in southwestern Florida to be totally destroyed and “require a complete rebuild,” as the Wall Street Journal reported. That That will hamper other types of recovery as well.

And recovery will be an ongoing need for an extended period of time. A lifelong Floridian just north of Fort Myers told the Journal of flooding unlike any she had seen before. Mailboxes were underwater and cars, floating down the street.

Ian ripped the roof off the emergency room at HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital in Port Charlotte, according to the New York Post. Water poured in and staff had to move the sickest patients, some on ventilators, to other parts of the building.

The storm ripped out a section of the only driving access to Sanibel and Captiva Islands, with their combined population of just over 6,700.

“This is a life-changing event for all of us,” Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”

Trying to exactly estimate the economic impact at this point is next to impossible. But the numbers are likely to be stunningly large. The storm was moving through big citrus farming, phosphate mining, and then the decaying remains moving into Orlando, with its enormous tourism industry. “I think the lowest we’re going to see is $30 billion,” Chuck Watson, Enki Research founder and director of research and development, told Bloomberg Markets and Finance.