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case also tonight we return to florida devastated by hurricane ian eight months ago florida insurance companies are accused of short changing homeowners were damage claims altered? families still in limbo in uninhabitable homes. we investigate plus florida s massive tourism industry, booming in some places but struggling in others we met them right after ian hit. some left, some stayed the steps forward big and small as ft. myers beach comes back announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt reporting tonight live from ft. myers beach, florida. good evening and welcome, everyone. we ve taken nightly news on the road tonight to ft. myers beach, florida for a story of unfinished business tonight with the official start of hurricane season just over a week away, a followup to hurricane ian, which came ashore here last september as a destructive category 4 hurricane. in many spots here as you can see around me it looks like it just happened last week th ....
feet high, could plunge into the neighborhood. it s just one of the many gulf coast communities still suffering from catastrophic flooding. it s been quite an operation. some of our major thoroughfares have become impassable even as the water recedes, there s washouts. so we have a long, long recovery period. all of this following hurricane ian s destructiv ive h across florida. it slammed into the gulf coast as a category 4 hurricane. entire towns leveled. florida governor ron desantis is expected to give an update on the situation later on in this hour. we ll take that for you live. let s send it down to boris sanchez with our coverage from ft. myers, florida. boris? fred, you just broke the news that we have been dreading all day. initially, when we got up this morning, officials had told us that the death toll from hurricane ian was hanging at around 45 fatalities, and you just broke the news, 64 people killed by hurricane ian here in the state of florida and ....
on your wallet. president biden will announce a move to help keep energy prices down for americans less than three weeks before the all-important midterm elections. the president will announce the release of another 15 million barrels of oil from the strategic preserve. of course, in the past few days gas prices have been dropping in some areas but on average they re still up 17 cents a gallon from a month ago. of course, the cost at the pump factors into the economic worries voters will carry to the polls and could be a problem for democrats since they re the party in power. cnn s phil mattingly is at the white house. phil, what do we expect to hear from the president? you know, ana, not a lot of levers the president can pull in an international economy and global market like the oil market. this, what the president will announce is one of them. both an actual action, announcing the sale of another 15 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve but also in s ....
12 feet higher, devastating communities like for the myers, naples and some 2 million homes and businesses are without power in florida, that is 20% of the entire state and 96% of fort myers is in the dark. one official saying it could take weeks for the power to come back on in some areas. floodwater inundating areas like naples and port charlotte. these are pictures of that area leaving some people who decided to ride out the storm trapped in their homes, others rescued from their cars, berman. the danger also continues, we should note. reporter: it absolutely does continue. the storm not done yet. brianna, i m sorry for communication problems earlier. the fema administrator told me they are prepared for thousands of displaced people, thousands perhaps of long-term displaced people. so that is what people are up against here in florida right now. cnn s got live team coverage of ian still very much a powerful force. first i want to go to the national hurricane center ....
it s the top of the hour on cnn newsroom. i m alisyn camerota in new york. hurricane ian has killed at least 13 people. it s the strongest storm to hit the west coast of florida in nearly 20 years. local officials say we should brace for that number of victims to rise. the life and death danger from ian continues as it pushes northeast, still pummelling florida. rescuers were pulling people from high water all day and night. survivors describe no time to wait as people had to carry children, as you can see, through chest-high waters. ian made landfall just west of cape coral. our cnn drone shows the devastation there. i mean obviously you can just see these are supposed to be streets, but they are completely flooded. nearby ft. myers and naples further south are both decimated. countless neighborhoods are still submerged in the floodwaters at this hour. the communities of sanibel and pine island are now cut off from the mainland after ian washed away parts of this c ....