Hurricane Ian has left thousands without power and clean water

Corryn Wetzel is a writer.

Hurricane Ian ripped homes off their foundations and transformed streets into waist-deep canals in Florida. Millions of people in the US were without power as of 3 October, and thousands were stranded by high water and damaged roads.

The scale of that destruction is just starting to be seen. It is likely to be one of the worst in the nation's history according to US president Joe Biden. It will take a long time to rebuild.

There were more than 3.5 metres of storm surge and more than 40 centimetres of rain when the category 4 Hurricane roared through Florida. In Florida's Lee County, there is damage to the cities of Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Sanibel Island. The island of Cuba was hit by a tropical storm before it made its way to Florida.

After crossing over Florida into the Atlantic, Hurricane Ian made a second landfall on the coast of South Carolina as a category 1 storm on September 30th.

There are four confirmed dead in North Carolina and three in Cuba. As search teams comb through the rubble, officials expect the death toll to rise, as residents remain cut off from basic necessities.

Read more: Hurricanes are staying stronger for longer as sea temperatures rise

More than 600,000 homes and businesses in Florida were without power. Some people in the southwestern part of the state have been told to boil their water to make it safe. It could be weeks or months before the power is back on.

In an update on 1 October, the governor of Florida said that the biggest challenge with power restoration would be in areas that bore the brunt of category 4 plus. It will be fixed, but it won't happen in a day or two.

FEMA is conducting door-to-door searches for people who need to be evacuated. FEMA said on 30 September that it had delivered 1.1 million meals and 1.6 million liters of water to people in Florida.

Climate researchers warn that southern US states could see more intense hurricanes like Ian in the future due to warm, moist conditions created by burning fossil fuels. Climate change is making hurricanes more intense according to most scientists.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington has an overwhelming consensus that storms will get stronger. It is difficult to say how climate change contributed to the recent storm, but Hurricane Ian may be an ominous warning of more destructive hurricanes to come.