in the united states and around the world. i m john vause at cnn s world headquarters. in atlanta. it seems hurricane it is not done yet. in florida with a rising death toll on ongoing rescues, and looking like a wall zone. this color storm is gaining strength right now a category one, bearing down on charleston, south carolina, with all expected later friday. the death toll in florida stands at 19. a number of which is almost certain to rise in the coming days. the u.s. president on thursday warning of a substantial loss of life for me and. which one official has described as likely the biggest natural disaster the state has ever seen. and that is triggered the biggest disaster response in florida s history. tens of thousands of emergency workers deployed statewide. at this hour, almost 2.2 million homes and businesses remain without electricity. large areas of the state are underwater. in georgia, ian produced a rainfall, it up deterring some of the worst-hit areas. gover
at 19, a number that is almost certain to rise in the days ahead. the u.s. president warming up thursday poll of a lot of loss of life as one official sank likely the biggest natural disaster disaster the state s ever seen. that s the biggest disaster in florida s history. tens of thousands of emergency workers and deployed statewide. now 2 million homes and businesses stay with the electricity. large parts of the state are underwater. instead it s a one in 1000-year rainfall. the governor ron desantis decided describe the storm surge is biblical. some of the damage was almost under scribe-able to see a house just sitting in the middle of a sterile bay. you must be flown because of the massive wind speed and storm surge and deposited in a body of water. there were cars floating in the middle of the water. some of the homes were total losses. he is expected to hit south carolina and coincide with high tide on friday, greatly to increasing the potential for flooding. the go
to mention all the other damage that we got, that s impacted our community here. and is to be clear, the power grid, it wasn t a situation in puerto rico where it was pretty bad shape before the hurricane arrives. what was the power grid like around your area, around marco island? was it in good shape? he generally do so much to protect yourself against that type of seawater hit, you know, this is one of those light once in a lifetime storms. and as i said before, this one was less about the winds for us, and it was more about the storm surge. we ve had recently in 2017 where we recently hit by hurricane irma, which was a strong cat four, but that was more of a classic hurricane. i heard your last caller say that there is not or nothing classic about this hurricane. and that could not be more
vast majority, vast percentage of my district is probably still in the dark, is instead of repair that you would have a sometimes after normal store things to be knocked or transformers, there is so much damage, excessive amount of water from the surge, that you are talking about replacement of major components. transformers, major pieces of our utility system here, just for the power alone. not to mention all the other damage that we have and has impacted our community here. just to be clear. it wasn t a situation in puerto rico where it was in bad shape before the hurricane arrived. what was a like around your area wasn t easily in good shape? it was okay but you can only do so much to protect yourself from that type of seawater hit.