A sheriff in the state’s hardest-hit area said early on Thursday that hundreds are already feared dead as historic Hurricane Ian continues to wreak havoc in Florida and that the death toll is sure to rise.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told “Good Morning America” that Hurricane Ian is “a life-changing event for all of us,” he also added “I definitely know the fatalities are (confirmed) in the hundreds.”
“This is a life-changing event for all of us,” Sheriff Marceno told GMA. ”
I don’t have confirmed numbers — I definitely know the fatalities are in the hundreds,” he added.
“So far, confirmed in the hundreds.”
Marceno noted that conditions were still too dangerous for his department and other rescue crews to fully access the scope of the damage.
He said there “are thousands of people waiting to be rescued.”
“There are thousands of people that are waiting to be rescued. And again, cannot get a true assessment until we’re actually on scene assessing each scene, and we can’t access people, that’s the problem,” he said.
The sheriff also warned that rescuers will “see things they’ve never seen before,” referring to mass drownings, according to the New York Post.
Roger Desjarlai, the manager for Lee County, said on Wednesday that hurricane Ian was currently still “too strong” for officials to began rescue work, calling his community “decimated” by the storm.
“We are beginning to get a sense that our community has been, in some respects, decimated,” he said that night.