everywhere. i ve never seen damage like this in my whole life. it s unreal. reporter: boats tossed like toys. the lone bridge connecting the island cracked and crumbled with the storm s winds putting some sections totally under water. we had about 200 households that didn t evacuate on the island that we know of. reporter: anyone still trapped on the isolated island now waiting for rescue by boat or air. we joined the lee county sheriff as he surveyed some of the hardest hit areas to see the full scope of ian s power. you know that as we are speaking right now, there are people that want us and need us and we can t get to them. reporter: people like jack and betty. an elderly couple who hasn t been heard from since the storm hit their continue dope. the worst part is the waiting and the unknown and not knowing that they re okay. reporter: their son scott says his parents were unable to evacuate in time and forced to hunker down on their ground floor. but rescuer
of ian s destruction. look at the pictures in front of you. this is what it looks like, including in lee county, where rescue crews, this is a live look now, a live look at that location, rescue crews are trying to get to people, with millions of floridians without power and water. we re going to take you live to the hardest-hit areas including lee county, which you re looking at now, for what is expected to be obviously a years-long recovery. i m halle jackson in washington. let s get to shaq brewster live for us in charleston, south carolina, nbc news meteorologist janice is with us today. shaq ian has made landfall in the last 40 minutes. tell us what you re seeing. the landfall was several miles up here from charleston, and that does not mean that charles was not impacted by this storm. throughout the afternoon and into the morning, and throughout the afternoon, we saw heavy rain bands, heavy wind bands. that tropical storm weather, that was expected for many people her
ian now setting its sites on the south carolina coast, as we come on the air, with the tropical storm expected to strengthen back into a hurricane as it moves, look at it there, very slowly across the atlantic and back towards the east coast, after a trail of destruction in florida. people there are reeling now from one of the worst storms that has ever hit them, and doing what they can to start picking up the pieces. sanibel island, captiva island, a storm surge, with a huge chunk of the causeway there, that is the only way in or out, in a state overall, more than two and a half million people are without power and look at where that deep red is, some counties in southwest florida are totally we re live with officials, from across florida, as well as somebody from part of the federal response to this storm. cabinet secretary, homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, hallie jackson in washington and we have the team covering every angle, and every location, and steve p
scott, who would not attack something trump said. don t we also have a responsibility to not only not do it but also to say when someone does it, that that s wrong or we disagree with it forthright and not try to kind of pull out punches? absolutely to i agree with you. one of the things that just shocked me early in trump s presidency was when he would use words like deranged and human scum to describe his enemies, enemies of the state. and i m from a generation when we would address our opponents by something like my right honorable opponent. what a what a fall in just the civility of our nation that was introduced by trump. and i don t think anybody can really justify that. i don t think it helps them at all. i agree with you. yeah, it should be renounced and called out. we re at the top of the hour. i just want to underline one final thing here because you brought this up, and i remember when nancy pelosi said that she prayed for donald trump, and he said, oh, that