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Rescuers searched for survivors among the rubble of homes flooded by Hurricane Ian in Florida, while authorities in South Carolina waited for dawn to assess damage from the storm’s second strike.
The powerful storm terrified millions for most of the week, hitting western Cuba before sweeping across Florida from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic, where it gathered enough force for a final blow against South Carolina. s attack.
It has since weakened to a still-dangerous post-tropical cyclone and traveled overnight through North Carolina to Virginia, pushing heavy rains toward the mid-Atlantic states.
At least 30 people were confirmed dead, most of 27 in Florida from drowning, but others from the tragic aftermath of the storm.
An elderly couple died after their oxygen machines were turned off after losing power, authorities said.
Meanwhile, on Friday, distraught residents waded through knee-high water as they rescued what they could from their flooded homes and loaded them onto rafts and canoes.
“I want to sit in the corner and cry. I don’t know what else to do,” Stevie Scuderi said after pacing her mostly-ruined Fort Myers apartment, dirt from her kitchen sticking to her purple sandals .
In South Carolina, Ian’s center goes ashore near Georgetown, a small community on the shores of Wynya Bay about 60 miles north of Charleston.
The storm washed away parts of four piers along the coast, two of which are connected to the popular tourist town of Myrtle Beach.
Friday’s storm was much weaker than when Ian made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast earlier this week.
There, authorities and volunteers were still assessing the damage, and shocked residents tried to make sense of what they had just experienced.
Even though Ian had crossed Florida long ago, new problems kept popping up.
The 14-mile Interstate 75 in the Port Charlotte area was closed in both directions late Friday as a flood of water swelled the Myakka River.
The official death toll climbed throughout the day on Friday, with authorities warning the death toll could be higher once crews clean up the damage more fully.
Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Department of Emergency Management, said Friday’s search was for emergency rescue and initial assessment.
The dead included a 68-year-old woman who was swept into the sea by the waves and a 67-year-old man who fell into her home in flooded water while waiting for rescue.
Authorities also said a 22-year-old woman died when the ATV overturned as the road washed away, and a 71-year-old man died when he fell from a roof while installing rain shutters. Three more people died in Cuba earlier this week.
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