Hurricane Ian updates: Florida death toll climbs

Sanibel, Florida Mayor Holly Smith said that her city will not be the same following Hurricane Ian's catastrophic impact.

Smith said she was on the island for four hours Friday and witnessed the devastation firsthand.

"Unless you're on the ground, you really can't take in the gravity of what we experienced. It's a different Sanibel," Smith told ABC News Live Prime.

Smith said that she was checking in on 300 residents and that it was very important to make contact.

"As far as we know at this point, the number of fatalities recorded are four,'' Smith said.

"This is going to be a very long recovery process," Smith added of the efforts to get everybody off the island and to safety. "It's not habitable."

Key West did not escape hardship, but in Ian's wake, many Key West residents have expressed relief that the coastal city hadn't endured far worse.

The path of the then-Category 4 hurricane veered west of Key West, sparing it the strongest of the storm's impact. Flooding was reported in nearly 100 apartments. Though the city suffered no casualties or uptick in emergency room visits, Alyson Crean, a public officer with the Key West Fire Department, told ABC News. The city largely returned to normal on Friday, as businesses and schools reopened.

The mix of desolation and relief in Key West embodies the range of fates across Florida, where some communities escaped largely unscathed while others saw tragedy.

"We were relieved when we saw that the storm was turning a different way," Jennifer McComb, the chief executive at the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys, told ABC News. "For a while, it looked like it could've been a direct hit."

Read more here.

-ABC News' Max Zahn

As Hurricane Ian was bearing down on southwestern Florida Wednesday, Beth Booker received photos and videos showing Ian's storm surge starting to fill her mother's Fort Myers home.

Then, shortly after the storm made landfall in Florida, the updates stopped.

Unable to communicate with her mom, Carole McDanel, any longer, Booker turned to Twitter, using the hashtag #GetCaroleHome and asked her followers for help.

Some 24 hours later, Booker tweeted the news that McDanel had been found.

Read more about their emotional reunion here.

There have been at least 33 storm-related deaths due to Ian in Florida, ABC News has determined based on information from the Florida Medical Examiners Commission and inquiries with local officials and authorities.

That includes 16 deaths in Lee County, six in Charlotte County, four in Volusia County, three in Collier County, two in Sarasota County, and one each in Lake and Manatee counties.

Earlier Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said there were 21 deaths from Ian, of which 20 were unconfirmed because they were spotted during search and rescue operations and crews were told to prioritize those found alive and still trapped.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Friday evening that there are 10 confirmed deaths attributed to Ian across in Lake, Sarasota, Manatee, Volusia and Collier counties. The causes of death were primarily drownings, as well as two vehicle accidents and a roof accident. The tally, confirmed by the Medical Examiners Commission, does not include any fatalities from hard-hit Lee or Charlotte counties.

It is unclear whether the state's figures overlap with ABC News' analysis.

-ABC News' Ahmad Hemingway, Alex Faul and Benjamin Stein