shock and disbelief that such a massive storm came through here, you know? we were warned. we knew it was going to be big. you know, we made that choice to stay. my island of paradise is gone as i knew it. reporter: more than 400,000 people are still without power and many on these barrier islands may not have it for up to a month. still, they re holding out hope. we re strong people. we ll get through it. we ll rebuild and come back. reporter: we talked about the boats in our story. you ll see the boats behind me that have washed up here. this is a fishing community where the shrimpers here will be quick to tell you we have provided food for this country for decades and now they feel left behind saying they would just love to be able to hear from a government official providing help or just wash their hands or get a warm bath. they feel like they ve been left behind. layla santiago, cnn, fort myers beach, florida. if you d like to help those
respirators and katie del says face severe health risks, while the lack of air conditioning threatens older more vulnerable populations. with us to announce the public health crisis bias doctor irwin red letter. he s the founding director of the national center for disaster preparedness at columbia university. erwin, you and i have been talking throughout this hurricane, often i guess it was friday, i went over to an area in fort myers beach where there are a number of shrimpers, who live on their boats. their homes haven t been destroyed, their boats have been destroyed, they had a lot of issues. they didn t have food, power, couldn t charge cell phones, didn t know where to go for assistance, did nowhere to go for food. the number one thing they said to me is can we get some portable toilets. we re about to have a sanitation problem here, because we have no toilets. and right. this is a typical but highly complex and very severe disaster. it starts with a semi collapse,
florida. i think we need to have an intentional focus to recovery and making sure that those of us who needed the most get the help first. you made another point about people i spoke to today. renters don t always have ranchers insurance, homeowners don t always have homeowners insurance because in tough times it becomes hard to afford. i had the shivers to shrimpers telling me the gases up in the price of shrimp is down, and they re getting squeezed. government can t do this intentional recovery on its own. you have been out there, community organizations are essential. the biggest need right now? i think the biggest need is
docket for them when they are thinking about their bills. but most importantly, we also have a housing housing insurance issue. someone texted me today saying that the he doesn t have house insurance because you can t afford it. and so this is where we are currently in the state of florida. i think we need to have an intentional focus to recovery and making sure that those of us who needed the most get the help first. you made another point about people i spoke to today. renters don t always have ranchers insurance, homeowners don t always have homeowners insurance because in tough times it becomes hard to afford. i had the shivers to shrimpers telling me the gases up in the price of trump s down, and they re getting squeezed. government can t do this intentional recovery on its own. you have been out there, community organizations are essential. what is the biggest need right now? i think the biggest need is twofold, maybe even three fold. one, there is a food made.
and how they can apply for assistance. they need to get the t s in their. as of yesterday, there was many places that government officials haven t been yet as you reported on tv. this is the interesting thing, i m going to bear on your history and louisiana because it is a big fishing community. these people, these shrimpers are on the economic low end of the fishing community. they were telling me that their gas prices are up for their boats, their cars. the prices of trump s are down. their boats were not insured because there are really old boats. these are not folks who seem to have a lot of options outside of this. what they were telling me is that not only their lives and their money is gone, but their livelihoods are gone. that is not an easy thing for us to structurally accommodate or figure out. we can get the camps, we can get them a place to live, but how do we think about that when storms destroyed livelihoods? those small businesses are