thousands of people cut off from the mainland 6789 the only way to get there, air, helicopter or boat. you see semitrucks bringing supplies, we re moving as fast as we can, we are here to support as long as needed. carley: alexandria hoff joins us live from fort myers beach. what an experience. the pictures look like a bomb went off. what did you learn? alex: how complicated it has been to get to people in need, those in barrier islands that have been completely cut off. recovery operation or the operation to get to some form of state of recovery, 24 hours ongoing and quite impressive. latest numbers, 430,000 floridians still without power, down from 2.6 million and hardest hit places, though, they could be in the dark for weeks and months, some are anticipating. as number of those without power comes down, ian s death toll is rising. report of 78 deaths, 71 in florida, even survival plagued by trauma. a resident put it, it is the most horrible thing in the world really
in the northern part of my district it was north of the eye didn t have as much storm surge but obviously as you have seen pictures south of fort myers. storm surge. hopefully they heeded the evacuation calls. the priority on power is obviously hospitals first and then nursing homes and rehab facilities. a lot of those are back up. all of our hospitals are up. a lot of the nursing homes and rehab facilities are up. i still personally do not have power. we are at about half a million that still do not have power. that pales in comparison to the 2 million floridians that didn t have power when the storm hit. so everywhere you go in my district, you see a line truck, power company is trying to get out and get power to people. trying to get some semblance of life back. there are places in my district that will never be the same. certainly never look the same. that s the sad reality we are facing and you are facing, congressman. meantime, want to get your calls on this. fears growing that
seen here is usually 11 days out, as we are at this point after maria, you see a lot more infrastructure in place. supplies runs down the highway, convoys and military officials. we re not quite seeing that. yesterday i saw one electric line truck and there was no one in a cherry picker putting a line back up. so let me set the scene for you and what they are dealing with. 95% of the island still in the dark. it is hot, it is still hot here in the tropics. 80s upper 80s with high humidity. yesterday it rained all day. conditions here are miserable for people trying to get by day-to-day. that s how they re living down here. hour by hour. there are lines everywhere you see. lines to get gas, food, lines to get water, lines to get cash. lines to get into the grocery store, also to the drugstore. they re dealing with lines.. people are spending considerable parts of their day standing in line trying to get some need met, and in some cases, they get to the point where they are told, there s
out, as we are at this point after maria, you see a lot more infrastructure in place, supplies, runs down the highway, con voice of military officials. we are not quite seeing that. yesterday i saw one electric line truck yesterday and no one up in a cherry picker putting the line back up. so let me set the scene for you 11 days out. 95% of the island still in the dark. it is hot. it is still hot here in the tropics. upper 80s with high humidity. rained yesterday. so conditions are miserable. trying to get by day by day. in some cases hour by hour. lines to get everything, food, water, cash, fuel, grocery store, also to the drugstore, people are spending considerable parts of their day standing in line trying to get some need met. and in some cases they get to the point where they are told there is no more gas. and so you can imagine how frustrating that is.