Southwestern Florida was slammed by a historic Hurricane Ian Wednesday afternoon, September 28, 2022, making landfall with 150 mph winds and a record-setting storm surge. Photo: sternviral.com

Debris litters a street in a neighborhood of St. Pete Beach as the winds from Hurricane Ian arrive on September 28, 2022 in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photo: Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

The full scale of the disaster unleashed by Hurricane Ian on Florida began to emerge Thursday, September 29, 2022, as catastrophic flooding trapped residents in their homes, destroyed critical infrastructure, and left over 2 million people without power.

Fatalities possibly in 'hundreds'- Lee County Sheriff

At least five people are believed to have been killed in Fort Myers and the surrounding Lee County area following Hurricane Ian, officials have said

Initially, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said that while the figures cannot yet be confirmed, fatalities were possibly in the “hundreds”, while “thousands” of people were waiting to be rescued.

The fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the US when measured by wind speed, Ian tore into the Southwest Florida coast with violent gales, an epic storm surge, and as much as a foot of rain being dropped over some areas.

Ian came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane near Cayo Costa in Lee County just after 3:00 pm, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), knocking out power to over 2 million customers across Florida as of early Thursday morning and triggering dozens of water rescues in the southwestern part of the state.