At least 100 people have died during Hurricane Ian’s battering of Florida with 150mph winds that ripped apart buildings and caused devastating flash flooding.
Rescue teams are continuing to search for survivors from the Category 4 storm while people return to their homes and try to come to terms with the destruction.
The greatest death toll so far has been in Lee County where 54 people lost their lives as the grim number of fatalities continues to rise.
Now that the hurricane has past, authorities are facing questions over whether evacuation orders should have been made sooner.
Emergency services have been doubling back to check on tens of thousands of homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast after completing an initial search of the area that was ravaged by Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the United States.
First responders have made a quick visit to more than 45,000 homes and businesses, said Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida's emergency management.
"We've been to about every address," he said, noting that crews are now conducting a more thorough search. "We believe that we have searched everything very quickly. Now we are going back for a second look."
Details have begun to emerge about some of the lives lost in the storm. Many of the victims were over 60 years of age and had drowned, according to Florida's Medical Examiners Commission.
In hard-hit Lee County, one body was found on a neighbor's deck and another in a submerged car. A 68-year-old woman drowned in Volusia County after being swept by a wave into the ocean.
"I am not saying we are not going to find anybody else. We may find other people," Guthrie said of the second search.
Over claims that evacuation orders should have been made quicker, Florida Sheriff Carmine Marceno said the hurricane was "unpredictable".
"A lot of people want to sit here and say ‘oh, could you have done it quicker, could you have done it differently.’ I’m here to tell you that this storm was so unpredictable," Sheriff Marceno told Fox News.
"But I can tell you this with certainty. At the emergency operations centre, we made that call the second we thought and we were able and we wouldn’t change anything. We want everyone to listen, we can't force them out of their homes. But we did everything we could the proper way."
Some 43,000 linemen and support staff were working to restore power to more than 560,000 homes and businesses that remained without electricity on Monday - with about 3.3 million homes and businesses having initially lost power during the storm.
The head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Colonel Gene Spaulding, warned residents to stay off roads in order to make it easier for emergency responders and power crews to gain access.
Some roads remain under water and others that might seem safe could have all the earth washed out underneath the asphalt, he said, adding: "Don't assume it is safe."
