that number could rise even higher as search and rescue crews work to reach cutoff areas, removing debris from destroyed homes and businesses along florida s southwest coastline and we re learning that miami-dade fire rescue crews are conducting helicopter evacuations on sanibel island. boris sanchez is there in fort myers, florida. boris, you just spoke with the lee county sheriff a few moments ago. what was said? reporter: fred, there have been a lot of questions today about the timing of when lee county ordered evacuations. we re in lee county right now in fort myers. what we ve learned is lee county ordered its first evacuations more than a day after forecasts met the county s criteria despite the fact the county has an emergency plan that suggests evacuations should have happened earlier. the county s comprehensive emergency ma or more of water would indicate the need for hurricane evacuations in the most vulnerable areas. a lot of lee county is a vulnerable area. one
the county s comprehensive emergency ma or more of water would indicate the need for hurricane evacuations in the most vulnerable areas. a lot of lee county is a vulnerable area. one road in and one road out in many of these parts of fort myers, heading into fort myers beach. that s part of the reason many of them have been cut off. on sunday when 4 to 7 foot surge advisories were put out, that was three days before hurricane ian made landfall. it was predicted for an area from bonita, the evacuation went out tuesday morning. that prognostication of what was coming was sunday night. i asked the sheriff about that