Ian barrels into South Carolina, causes major flooding and damage

But the first Hurricane Ian hit the Carolinas on Friday after causing widespread

damage

in Florida, a storm that destroyed docks and inundated neighborhoods with life-threatening storm surge. Heavy rain brought down trees and power lines and left areas in Charleston underwater as the storm moved through South Carolina. weakened to a post-tropical cyclone in Florida, rescue teams are going door to door trying to help anyone who may still be trapped by the storm. Houses and businesses demolished. President Biden said it will take years to rebuild. Nearly 2 million people are still in the dark as officials seek to assess the full extent of the

damage

we have.

Team coverage of Ian's devastating impacts and ongoing search and rescue efforts, but we begin with CBS News Senior National Correspondent Mark Strassman, who now joins us from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Hello, Catherine. to talk to you, uh, what we're feeling right now. I think this is the end of the storm. From time to time, the winds will pick up stronger than normal and you will notice that Ian has not yet completely made landfall. This occurred about 40 miles

south

of us in Georgetown, South Carolina, which is part of the state known as the Low Country. The low country is a series of communities found on or under the sea. level especially vulnerable to

flooding

and those areas are the ones that are really having a difficult time, tonight, we have a community reporting to Polyz Island reporting, the

flooding

there was catastrophic, a couple of communities, as you mentioned, the docks were left completely destroyed and then you I also have individual cases of things gone wrong, things you shouldn't see.

I want to show you that shrimp boat that's stranded behind me. What we have heard is that the crew had to evacuate and then the force of the storm pushed the ship a little further. A couple of miles in the sand here gives you an idea of ​​what the strength of a category one storm can be and the misery here is, listen, this wasn't Florida, this is nothing on the scale of what we've all experienced. I've been watching and cringing at it for the last three or four days in Florida, but of course, misery is very individualistic, if it's your house that hurts and there are quite a few people here that are hurting tonight, Catherine, well , Marco is just going to ask you, uh.

Based on the reporting he's been doing throughout the day, which areas remain most at risk. I think those areas in the low country are the ones that suffered, they are usually prone to flooding, and that's with heavy rain and now. We are talking about a category one hurricane. I guess the good news is that it was a category one and not a category four like it was, but it hit, you know, Fort Myers and Santa Paula Island and that part of

south

west Florida, but but those areas know they're going to hit it. receive and yet when it arrives, it can still be overwhelming both the water and the feeling of oh God, here we go again, we have a we don't just have to wait for this. the water goes away, but then we have to rebuild whatever was damaged and, uh, if you've ever been inside a flooded house, you know, there are very few things in life that smell worse than mold inside a flooded house. .

I have to tear down all the walls to the studs and essentially start over and that of course is a huge pain for the next guy so hopefully these people will get out of this okay I haven't heard any reports No deaths or serious injuries so far, so that's the good news, but again it's been a tough day here on the South Carolina coast and let's take it a step further, in the Carolinas, as you may have noticed, we are working on a very short schedule if they could. to get everyone out who needed to evacuate, my son says yes, although here at least they didn't order any evacuations per se, nothing mandatory, not even anything voluntary, but of course what you have to do when you live in these small towns it's you.

You have to know who is particularly vulnerable. If there is an elderly person or someone who is not fully mobile, you have to know that those people are in trouble and, in general, of course, here in the South, in these small towns, people take care of each other, you know that Mrs. Jones, who lives in Block, is elderly and will need help and has no way to get out of town when, uh, when disaster strikes. she is on the horizon so I have not heard from Catherine again of any cases of people being seriously injured or in need of serious rescue.

We saw a rescue today, about a block from where I am, it was an apartment building. Suddenly there was a moat of water about four feet deep around the building and there were about five people standing on the second floor of this apartment building and a fire truck came and used the tower ladder and platform to get them out of the balcony and bring them back to land to safety, so there have been cases of that, but I haven't heard of a really significant crisis brewing, and that, of course, is also good news, Mark Strassman, thank you.