feet high, could plunge into the neighborhood. it s just one of the many gulf coast communities still suffering from catastrophic flooding. it s been quite an operation. some of our major thoroughfares have become impassable even as the water recedes, there s washouts. so we have a long, long recovery period. all of this following hurricane ian s destructiv ive h across florida. it slammed into the gulf coast as a category 4 hurricane. entire towns leveled. florida governor ron desantis is expected to give an update on the situation later on in this hour. we ll take that for you live. let s send it down to boris sanchez with our coverage from ft. myers, florida. boris? fred, you just broke the news that we have been dreading all day. initially, when we got up this morning, officials had told us that the death toll from hurricane ian was hanging at around 45 fatalities, and you just broke the news, 64 people killed by hurricane ian here in the state of florida and potent
killed by hurricane ian here in the state of florida and potentially more as officials get closer to areas that were cut off because of the storm and the damage caused by hurricane ian toppling bridges and closing down highways because of rising waters and of course just debris strewn everywhere. as you can see, some of it behind me. these large vessels just thrown around like toys by this very powerful, nearly category 5 storm. let s get you to cnn s team coverage tracking the latest developments on the ground everywhere that hurricane ian has impacted. we have team coverage looking at the latest on recovery efforts from florida to the carolinas and into the northeast where this now post-tropical cyclone is dumping water and wind. let s go to arcadia, florida, now, because cnn s nadia romero is there.