hurricane ian regained strength, now once again a hurricane barreling towards south carolina as a category 1 storm with 85 mile an hour winds expected to make its third landfall just a few hours from now. the governor of south carolina after seeing the catastrophic damage in florida imploring residents in his state not to underestimate this storm. warning, we know what is coming. officials in florida say ian is likely the largest natural disaster in the history of that state, prompting the largest emergency response ever in florida. and the toll is coming in. at least 19 people killed so far, that number sadly likely to rise. more than 2 million people in the state it s a huge number remain without power. in fort myers beach the damage described by officials there is total devastation. look at those pictures, it s like a tornado just swept through there. 90% of that island destroyed, most of the homes there completely flattened. it just is destroyed and it s ruined an
counties. that s along the gulf of mexico, southwest corner we pointed out a moment ago. you have 40,000 linemen on the ground. they will need them in order to restore power. dana: they have restored power to a significant portion already. it is impressive the work they ve done. there is a long way to go. 14,000 people in shelters. also a call for everybody to make sure they are being very smart in using their generators in order to protect people from any problems there and from electrocution and also from carbon monoxide. follow those instructions very, very carefully. bill: we are tracking ian and get back to that in a moment. we listened to governor desantis. pine island, sanibel, those are going to be rebuild efforts. the sanibel bridge had breaks in multiple parts of it. it was not where the water and pylons were. those held up well. it is where you had it on the sandbar and it got washed out. dana: the scale of the wreckage is southwest florida is staggering. m
A hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 74-95 mph is considered to be a Category 1 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. A Category 1 cyclone is the weakest of all hurricanes. The scale does not take into account flooding, erosion, tornadoes or storm surge that be hazardous.