Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Newsmax on Friday that power in his state is "almost 100% restored" after the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian.
DeSantis said on "American Agenda" that "a lot of what you're seeing on your TV is southwest Florida, where the storm hit, which is obviously significant. I've spent most of my time there since the storm, but this was such a big system. It dumped so much rain that you have places in central Florida, Osceola, Orange, Seminole, Volusia [counties] that had historic amounts of water."
He added: "South Florida Water Management District, they are able to redirect some of this water [and] ended up saving a lot of these homes. Your street's flooded, that's an inconvenience, but if it doesn't get to your front doorstep, then your home survives, and so we were able to save thousands of homes by redirecting that water."
DeSantis said later: "We have storms hit the state during tropical season, so we have a lot of resources that we bring to bear. We pre-stage a lot of stuff. So, for example, we had 42,000 utility workers staged in Florida. And so the storm comes and we had millions of people out" of power.
DeSantis added: "Now you basically have almost 100% restored. There's a couple places in Lee County that they're still working on, but those workers have now surged to help the utility co-op there, we had urban search and rescue on the road at midnight the day of the storm… so these are just things you've planned for and you execute."
DeSantis also said he had "no idea what they're talking about" when asked about reports of inequality in the relief efforts.
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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