Thank you.
Amna: Hurricane en has moved on
tonight after stamping an
indelible mark of death and
destruction across Florida.
Local officials are reporting
multiple people killed and
hundreds of thousands more in
the dark for days to come.
Ian has regained hurricane
strength later today as it has
for landfall on South Carolina
tomorrow.
We spent the day in saw -- in
saint Augustine, Florida and
begins our coverage.
Reporter: Rescuers struggled to
reach those left behind.
>> Are you ok?
Reporter: By did -- by midday
more than 500 people had been
rescued.
The efforts are hampered.
This is what is left of the only
connection between sanibel and
captiva islands and Florida's
gulf coast.
In Naples, buildings were
completely submerged.
Boats sit between buildings.
Some parts of the city were
under 3-4 feet of water turning
homes and islands and causing
severe damage.
>> We got out the door, swam out
the door.
Reporter: Officials are asking
people to stay home and off the
roads.
Many areas are still
unreachable.
President Biden mourned the
death toll could be
significantly higher.
>> This could be the deadliest
hurricane in the history of
Florida.
The numbers are still unclear.
Early reporting of substantial
loss of life.
Reporter: The Florida governor
--
>> This will require years of
effort to rebuild and to come
back.
These are fantastic communities
in southwest Florida.
They did not ask for this but
they need our help now.
>> Here we are right after the
storm.
Underwater.
Reporter: Across the state
utility crews prepare for the
long work of restoring power.
At one point as many as 2.5
million customers were in the
dark.
You stockpiled material here.
>> We gather the material that
our cruise in and out of state
will need for the restoration
process.
We have transformers and wires,
anything that needs to be used
by our cruise.
Reporter: Marshall Hastings is a
and light.
Statewide there are 21,000
workers ready to go.
Many of them from other power
companies from as far away as
Minnesota.
In some places the damage is so
great that task is more than
just simply restoring service.
>> We are going to have to
rebuild which means extended
outages for our customers.
Reporter: Climate scientists say
storms like en will be more --
like Ian will be more common as
warmer water stirs up these
kinds of storms.
>> We have been on a journey of
hardening the energy grid for
the last decade.
As we rebuild it, we are
insuring the grid is as strong
as it possibly can be.
Reporter: The storm is heading
out into the atlantic.
Landfall is estimated to be in
South Carolina where residents
are bracing for the arrival
tomorrow.
Utility officials say some parts
of the state may not have power
for days or weeks.
Because they will have to
rebuild the power grid in
areas where Ian left a deep
mark.
Amna: The damage sounds so
extensive particularly to the
power system.
It has only been eight days
since the storm made landfall.
How are the early efforts going
so far?
Reporter: It takes a little
while because they cannot get
out with some roads blocked.
They cannot get to where the
work is needed.
Also, they cannot get workers up
in the buckets.
They need the wind to be below
30 miles per hour in order to do
that.
We are getting buffeted here.
We are on the atlantic coast of
Florida so the storm has moved
out to the atlantic but we are
still being buffeted by gusts up
to 45 miles per hour.
They hope the tropical storm
wind will diminish overnight and
they can get out and be working
full force tomorrow.
Amna: When the damage is so
extensive and widespread, we
know they repositioned a lot of
cruise to address the power
system failure early but how do
they prioritize?
Reporter: They have 37 staging
areas around the state and the
locations kept changing as the
track of the storm kept
changing.
The utility has been working on
this and planning and
preplanning for the storm for
more than a week.
They have moved around the
staging areas to where they
anticipated they would be needed
the most.
The staging areas are like
worker camps.
They have big tractor-trailers
outfitted with bunks for the
workers to sleep in and tense to
feed them in all to make their
downtime more efficient and to
maximize the time they are out
working once they can get out
and once the winds die down.
Maximize their time trying to
restore power.
Amna: We hope they are able to
go out and do that safely as
soon as possible and we hope you
stay safe as well, John.