Jesse Scheckner
Close to two days after Hurricane Ian slammed Southwest Florida, more than half of Charlotte, Collier, Lee and Sarasota counties remain without power, according to the most recent data from the Public Service Commission.
Across the four counties, 604,618 of 1.15 million accounts with Florida Power & Light and the nonprofit Lee County Electric Cooperative (LCEC) awaited reconnections Friday afternoon, representing 64% of all outages statewide.
Lee County was in the worst shape, with 79% of its 288,630 FPL customers and 95% of its 173,605 cooperative customers without electricity. That included all of Cape Coral, Marco Island, North Fort Myers, Pine Island and Sanibel, according to LCEC, which purchases all of its power through FPL.
“Crews have been working diligently since the weather permitted (and) are assessing the LCEC service territory and repairing infrastructure,” LCEC said.
In Sarasota County, 53% of FPL’s 287,120 customers awaited restoration while 21,000 workers tried to bring back power across the Peninsula. The company noted more than 1 million of its customers statewide already had their lights back on midday Friday, “the first full day of restoration after Hurricane Ian exited Florida.”
Fifty-one percent of FPL’s 228,540 customers in Collier County and 72% of the 34,292 accounts there serviced through LCEC still needed power.
In Sarasota County, 53% of the 287,120 FPL customers there had no electricity.
Hurricane Ian made landfall Wednesday afternoon near Fort Myers at near-Category 5 strength, bringing torrential rain, tornadoes and massive storm surges that flooded a large swath of the Gulf Shore.
Footage of neighborhoods submerged by the deluge spread across social media.
In the eye wall of #Hurricane #Ian in Fort Myers. We're live on @weatherchannel along with @StephanieAbrams and @JimCantore #HurricanIan pic.twitter.com/gSBdmAUjWX
— Mike Seidel (@mikeseidel) September 28, 2022
Storm surge flooding in Naples from Hurricane Ian… video from @krisie_stakely (IG) pic.twitter.com/c9WPhDrDAG
— James Spann (@spann) September 28, 2022
Major flooding due to Hurricane Ian leaves a truck submerged in water on Fort Myers Beach.
📸: Beach Talk Radio pic.twitter.com/z7mwQutAV2
— ABC7 News (@ABC7SWFL) September 28, 2022
The following day, after the maelstrom passed, former Division of Emergency Management Director and current Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz took an aerial tour of the area.
“Most of it will need to be completely rebuilt,” he said.
I got an aerial tour of Fort Myers beach. Most of it will need to be completely rebuilt. pic.twitter.com/9WgZJdXnfm
— Jared Moskowitz (@JaredEMoskowitz) September 29, 2022
As of Friday afternoon, as many as 21 people were thought to be dead due to the hurricane, according to Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, who said that number is likely to increase.
One comment
Tiff wheeler
September 30, 2022 at 6:14 pm
We are without power and water and any access to water bc the only two stores open within 2 miles have none or any other necessary supplies. We are in South Fort Myers off of gladiolus. No one has given a answer to what we should do when we run out of water and there is none and a lot of people’s cars were under water and now not able to drive miles away to get anything
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