At least 21 people have died in the U.S. after Ian pummeled Florida's western coast as a massive hurricane before heading for Carolinas Friday, according to AP.
The big picture: Nearly 2 million customers were without power in the southeast Florida on Friday evening as affected states moved toward recovery efforts to deal with severe damage in the hurricane's aftermath. The storm became a post-tropical cyclone as winds dipped to 70 mph Friday afternoon.
* Florida officials said there were "several drowning deaths and other fatalities" from the storm, according to AP.
* A 22-year-old woman died when she was ejected in an ATV rollover incident on a washout road, AP reports.
* A 71-year-old man died from head injuries when he fell off a roof Wednesday while putting up rain shutters, per AP.
* Two people died in a car crash on Thursday afternoon in Putnam County, which was inundated with rain as the storm passed over the state.
* At least two people were confirmed dead on Sanibel, an island in southwest Florida that experienced major surge-related flooding during the storm.
* A person in Lake County died on Wednesday after his vehicle hydroplaned, while another person was found dead in the city of Deltona in central Florida, according to AP.
The latest: Ian made landfall Friday as a Category 1 storm in South Carolina, carrying a "life-threatening" storm surge of 4 to 7 feet, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes.
* By Friday evening, more than 350,000 customers were left without power across the Carolinas.
* The storm had regained hurricane status on Thursday night on its way to a damaging encounter with the Carolinas and a portion of southern Georgia.
What they're saying: The hurricane "is likely to rank among the worst in the nation's history," Biden said Friday at a press briefing. "You have all seen on television homes and property wiped out. It's gonna take months, years to rebuild."
* Biden had said Thursday "this could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida's history."
* "We absolutely expect to have mortality from this hurricane," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news briefing Thursday.
* DeSantis said there were more than 700 confirmed rescues as of Thursday evening.
* Some of the deadliest hurricanes in Florida tracked by the National Hurricane Center during the first half of the 20th century saw between around 350 and 1,800 deaths.
NHC officials warned Thursday night that many hurricane-related deaths occur days after the storm has passed while people are recovering.
* These deaths, also called "indirect deaths," primarily arise from excessive heat and over-exertion and carbon monoxide poisoning from running generators indoors.

credit: https://www.axios.com/2022/09/30/hurricane-ian-florida-death-toll