a crisis with no ordinary solution because this was no ordinary storm. look at the staggering scale of destruction. complicating hundreds of rescue efforts. it laid waste to entire towns, robbing people of their homes and livelihoods. some residents are now beginning to pick up the pieces. others have no pieces left to pick up. i just returned from a boat ride with the cageous navy where i saw some of the destruction for myself. this is what ian did to matt lachey in lee county where most of the deaths occurred so far. in matlacha. they find one of your neighbors? yeah. yeah. they found, like, i think three bodies so far in the water. i know there s more. cnn s nadia romero is in arcadia. we begin with brian todd in naples. officials said it could take months to recover. we have seen evidence all day long from our boat ride to where you are right now. where do things stand today where you are? jim, we re going to show you more evidence of why it s going to take so lon
all the people made it. heck, they even had a roost he couldn t trap that even made it. five miles from here, there are cows that drowned. we re lucky. reporter: she said they re lucky because they survived the storm. joan said the storm sounded like it was alive. hurricane ian was growling and howling as it just laid on top of them for what felt like forever. another woman came to pick up some of the water and food supplies here. she had running out of blood pressure medicine, jim. that s why you worry about the aftermath of storms where people start running out of life-saving materials like food, water, medicine. that s where the worries come in after the hurricane. jim. nadia, you re absolutely right. there are lines for everything around this area. lines for gas, groceries and so on. but i want to call your
deaths are being attributed to the storm. the governor s office announced three people were killed in separate vehicle incidents friday. today, a 65-year-old man died from carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator in a closed garage. his wife is hospitalized. that s a reminder to folks out there to be extremely careful f. they re in these hard-hit areas, be extremely careful with generators, running vehicles, making sure your garage door is open if you re doing that sort of thing. you don t want to mess around with carbon monoxide poisoning. that happens almost every time one of these s storms happenen. if you want to help go to cncnn.com/impact. how climate change fueled hurricane ian s fur. bill nye is here with us. he has lots of expertise. (vo) the older. the physically challenged. the last to chosen.
higher? . well, actually, jim, the city of ft. myers is very compact compared to the rest of the county. we didn t bear the bankrupt of the storm like the beach and the islands did. we had a lot of flooding as of right now in the city of ft. myers, we have not experienced any loss of life. okay. that s good news. let me just ask you this. because i ve been talking to residents and female who survived the storm, survivors all morning long. one of the anecdotes we are hearing is many people were caught offguard to some extent by hurricane ian. yes, they knew a hurricane was coming to this part of the gulf coast. they thought because the weather forecast said it might head towards tampa ta that it might not come down to the area. not everyone here got the evacuation orders when they thought they might get them. are you getting a sense of that as well? when you talk to your
before and after hurricane ian. this is ft. myers beach. look at that. there are literally empty lots where buildings once stood. and here s a look at sanibel island, hard hit. it has been totally devastated. still cut off from the mainland. so many homes and businesses destroyed all across the region. early estimate at this point for losses is some $47 billion. that s with a b, billion dollars, which would make this the most expensive storm in florida s history. thank you to all the photographers. joining us by phone is the mayor of ft. myers, kevin anderson. mayor anderson, thanks so much for joining us. i know you re busy. thanks for hopping on the phone just to if i was an update as to what is going on. it just looks like a weather war zone here in your community. the death toll has been raised up to 65. is there anything you re receiving, an indication at this point that that number could go