The death toll and damage assessments from Hurricane Ian were rising in southwest Florida and the Carolinas, the regions where the storm made its two landfalls.
After Ian came ashore for a second time, as a Category 1 hurricane in Georgetown, South Carolina, about midway between Charleston and Myrtle Beach and encompassing portions of North Carolina, four people were confirmed dead from the storm in those areas as of Sunday afternoon.
In South Carolina alone, the storm's path held about $84 billion in commercial real estate, including hotels, tracked by CoStar. Apartment values represent the largest portion of commercial real estate in South Carolina at $25.5 billion, CoStar data shows, while tourism-based retail property is second at more than $22 billion.
“Myrtle Beach and Charleston are some of the fastest-growing areas in the country,” said Chuck McShane, CoStar’s director of market analytics for the Carolinas. “Industrial development around the Port of Charleston has boomed over the past three years, and multifamily appreciation has also been significant in both beach markets.”
In Florida, the reported number of deaths has been as high as 76 while in Lee County, one of the hardest hit counties in Florida, the number was at least 35, Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in a video posted on Facebook. Florida’s Medical Examiners Commission put the deaths at 44, the Washington Post reported. The hurricane slammed into areas of Florida that had commercial real estate tracked by CoStar valued at roughly $88.6 billion.
Over the weekend, the devastation in southwest Florida, notably the barrier islands, became clearer as search and rescue teams combed areas and cleanup efforts began. More than 4,000 people have been rescued in southwest Florida, according to reports.
Images show Fort Myers Beach, a town on an island seven miles long, with large swaths of destruction amid bigger buildings that still stand. Many homes are scattered everywhere. Wind and water leveled small retail shops.
'Lost Everything'
“What Ian did to our beautiful little island community is absolutely devastating, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching,” according to a statement on the Lani Kai Island Resort Facebook page. “We are speechless, at a loss for words but so fortunate that our crew and their families who took refuge in our hotel during the storm all survived and made it but lost everything in the process.”
Satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show similar destruction on Sanibel Island, a popular vacation spot. The storm surge wiped a portion of the causeway between the mainland and the island. Coast Guard crews spent the weekend rescuing people from the island now cut off from the mainland.
Estimates of insured losses from the hurricane have risen. Karen Clark & Co., a catastrophe modeling firm, estimated U.S. insured losses near $63 billion, mostly in Florida.
“In nominal dollars, Hurricane Ian will be the largest hurricane loss in Florida history,” the firm said in a report released Friday. “The total economic damage will be well over $100 billion, including uninsured properties, damage to infrastructure, and other cleanup and recovery costs.”
CoreLogic, a property data analytics firm, estimated the cost for Florida losses at $28 billion to $67 billion for wind and storm surge damage for commercial and residential damage. Inflation, this year's higher interest rates, labor shortages and building materials in high demand could mean a “slow and difficult” recovery, CoreLogic said in a statement.
By the middle of this century, more than 648,000 taxable parcels representing 4.4 million acres, mostly in Florida, Texas and Louisiana, are “projected to be at least partly below the relevant tidal boundary level,” according to a report from nonprofit news organization Climate Central last month. Of those, 48,000 properties will be under water entirely by that time, according to the report.