Rescuers have located hundreds of people who had been missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, but many are still unaccounted for, according to a report.
It was not immediately clear how many people were missing in Florida but emergency officials said they received thousands of calls asking about missing people, but with cellphone service out across a wide area, they found it impossible to know who among those unaccounted for were safe but just unable to dial out to friends or family. The Miami Herald reported that thousands of people were informally reported missing to the Red Cross, local authorities and the state.
Matthew Marchetti, the co-founder of CrowdSource Rescue, later told Reuters that volunteers consisting of firefighters and off-duty officers found more than 520 people who had been reported missing. After Michael barreled into the Florida Panhandle, it made its way to southwest Georgia and South Carolina – while also lashing North Carolina and Virginia. At least 17 people have been killed.
“We still haven’t gotten into the hardest-hit areas,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Chief Brock Long said. “Very few people live to tell what it’s like to experience storm surge, and unfortunately in this country we seem to not learn the lesson.” – READ MORE