President Biden has warned, “There may be a substantial loss of life”. Biden has already authorized many kinds of federal emergency assistance to be ready; Governor DeSantis has made formal requests for emergency assistance, and; federal staff is already in Florida ready to help. But Hurricane Ian isn’t done, and most emergency workers cannot go into the worse hit places when Ian is still there. About one-third of the state is affected.
There will also be many political issues, e.g., Florida is a big, very important state. It has a population of about 21 million, and assuming one-third of the state is in serious emergency trouble, what happens to the November 8th election? Is it possible to reconstruct enough polling places? What about voters’ identification documents? Some of those are likely lost in the storm, the flooding, collapsed buildings, and more. Could the election be delayed? But would delay help? Will people who are scooping mud out of their houses, replacing documents, filing insurance claims, scrambling to send their kids to school, assuming their schools are still standing, want to take time to vote? No one knows.