Hurricane Ian updates: Florida death toll climbs
Lee County, which encompasses Fort Myers, accounts for most of the fatalities.
The remnants of Ian are charging up the East Coast on Saturday after making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in South Carolina on Friday afternoon.
The monster storm made its first U.S. landfall on Wednesday on Florida's west coast as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, shredding homes with ferocious winds topping 150 mph. Florida's death toll has climbed to at least 81, according to information from local officials.
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Bidens to visit Puerto Rico, Florida
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Puerto Rico on Monday, and Florida on Wednesday to survey the damage from Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian, respectively, the White House announced Saturday night.
Biden had previously said he would visit Florida to see the destruction in person, and that it was his "intention" to do the same for Puerto Rico.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
Florida death toll climbs
Florida’s death toll from Hurricane Ian has climbed to at least 72, according to information from local officials.
Lee County, which encompasses Fort Myers, accounts for the majority of the fatalities, with at least 35 lives lost in the county, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
In Charlotte County, which is home to Punta Gorda, the preliminary death toll is 23, the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office told ABC News.
Other fatalities were reported in Sarasota, Volusia, Lake, Collier, Hendry and Manatee counties.
Despite the "complete devastation" in Lee County, Sheriff Carmine Marceno said Saturday that "there's light at the end of the tunnel. ... We are going to be stronger than ever."
"We are one big family together. That's what makes us great. And sometimes these horrific events bring us all together for us to move forward," Marceno said.
-ABC News’ Matt Foster
1.05 million without power in Florida
Over 1.05 million customers remain without power in Florida on Saturday, days after Hurricane Ian tore through the state.
Another 56,800 customers are without power in North Carolina and more than 17,000 are in the dark in Virginia after Ian and its remnants moved north.
Over 1,100 people rescued in Florida by National Guard
More than 1,100 Floridians have been rescued by the Florida National Guard in the wake of Hurricane Ian, according to state officials.
The rescues include 1,076 people evacuated from flooded areas in southwest and central Florida as of Saturday morning, as well as 78 people transported from a flooded nursing home facility, Gov. Ron DeSantis' office said in a press release.
Central Florida seeing 500-year flood event, damage will take years to repair, DeSantis says
There is potentially major flooding in Orange and Seminole counties and St. Johns River, potentially up to Jacksonville in northeast Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday.
"The amount of water that's been rising and will likely continue to rise today, even as the storm is passing, is basically a 500-year flood event. And I know Seminole County has done evacuations, I know they've opened shelters, but we're gonna see a lot of images about the destruction that was done in southwest Florida and obviously we have massive assets there," DeSantis said.
"This storm is having broad impacts across the state and some of the flooding you're going to see in areas hundreds of miles from where this [storm] made landfall are going to set records. And that's going to obviously be the things that will need to be responded to," DeSantis added.
The damage caused by the storm will likely take years to repair, he said.
"You're looking at a storm that's changed the character of a significant part of our state. And this is going to require not just emergency response now, in the days or weeks ahead. I mean, this is going to require years of effort to be able to rebuild and to come back," DeSantis said.