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(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Ian flooded major cities and devastated homes after it made landfall in Florida — but the damage isn’t done.

After temporarily becoming a tropical storm, Hurricane Ian accelerated to Category 1 strength on Thursday night as it barreled toward South Carolina, with landfall expected on Friday.

In all, the economic damage wrought by the hurricane could reach up to $65 billion, according to a projection released on Thursday by data firm Enki Research, which studies the financial impact of storms.

The estimate put the best-case scenario for storm damage at $55 billion, Enki Research said.

The historic storm demolished homes and businesses, damaged infrastructure like roads and bridges and appears to have harmed citrus fruit trees that make up a key industry in the state.

Florida accounts for 70% of citrus fruits — such as oranges, grapefruits and tangerines — produced in the U.S.

Fixtures of the state’s tourism industry, like Disney World and Universal Orlando, temporarily closed as the storm approached earlier this week. On Friday, the parks announced that they would begin to reopen in phases.

President Joe Biden on Thursday approved a major disaster declaration for Florida, allowing additional federal aid to flow to the state.

Speaking on Thursday, Biden vowed support for state and local officials as they assess the damage caused by the storm, saying the federal government will cover the full cost of clearing debris and of rebuilding public buildings like schools and state fire stations.

The government will also be providing support to people with destroyed or damaged homes.

More than 8,700 people have registered for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

On Wednesday, the then-Category 4 hurricane sustained wind speeds of 150 mph as it made landfall on Florida’s west coast.

The storm struck the coastal city of Fort Myers, and affected nearby cities of Tampa Baby and Sarasota, before traveling east across the peninsula toward Orlando.

“It’s definitely going to be one of the stronger storms and more damaging storms,” Chuck Watson, Enki Research founder and director of research and development, told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Hurricane Charley, a major storm that struck Florida in 2004, caused damage that today would amount to between $20 billion and $25 billion, Watson said.

The projected costs for Hurricane Ian would amount to less than half of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, which totaled $161 billion.

While it caused major damage, Hurricane Ian avoided a large disruption of the U.S. oil and gas industry, which would have come about if the storm had traveled toward Texas and Louisiana, industry analysts previously told ABC News.

The state doesn’t host any oil refineries and accounts for about 6,000 barrels of oil production each day, said Andy Lipow, a longtime oil analyst and president of Lipow Oil Associates.

That output makes up a tiny fraction of overall U.S. oil production, which amounts to 11.8 million barrels per day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported this month.

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(NEW YORK) — The centerpiece for Thanksgiving tables across the country will cost more than ever this holiday season.

The American Farm Bureau Federation announced Wednesday that “families can expect to pay record high prices at the grocery store for turkey” due to bird flu and inflation.

The organization analyzed turkey costs in their latest Market Intel, finding retail prices on fresh boneless, skinless turkey breast reached a record high of $6.70 per pound in September, which is up 112% from 2021. The previous record high price was $5.88 per pound in November 2015, during the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak.

“This is particularly challenging for turkey production, because it takes a really long time to grow a turkey to its market weight of about 30 pounds. So when we saw these significant shocks to supply this spring, we’re now seeing it in grocery stores reflected in those prices today,” American Farm Bureau Federation senior economist Veronica Nigh told ABC News’ Good Morning America.

With inflation at a near 40-year high, retail food prices were up 11.4% in August compared to the same time last year.

Despite higher prices, farmers and retailers believe there should be enough turkeys to meet the holiday demand.

“All of us are feeling the pain of higher prices at the grocery store,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement. “HPAI outbreaks in the spring and an uptick in cases in the fall are taking a toll, but farmers remain dedicated to ensuring America’s food supply remains strong.”

Over 40 states have confirmed cases of bird flu, which has wreaked havoc on 46 million birds in the U.S.

In Minnesota, the top turkey supplier in the U.S., the situation has gotten so dire with the deadly outbreak that Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order to waive trucking regulations in an effort to help fight the spread.

“If your turkeys end up with bird flu, any other poultry on the farm, whether it’s meat chickens, egg layers, they all have to be exterminated and that’s not only a huge financial loss that’s just a really sad situation,” Nellie Lovenduski of Slate River Farms told local affiliate WXXA-TV.

But farmers maintain that consumers can still find their Thanksgiving turkeys.

“I think at a minimum you’re going to see an increase in price in turkeys even in the big box turkey providers,” Lovenduski said.

But Nigh explained there’s still ways to save.

“We’re looking at ways to perhaps mitigate cheaper Thanksgiving dinner and maybe more side dishes to go along with that with that turkey and looking for substitutes at the grocery store,” she suggested. “Think about getting a frozen burger rather than a fresh turkey this year. Ways to really stretch that dollar and so that we can all be together but still have that traditional Thanksgiving dinner.”

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(NEW YORK) — Fleeing Hurricane Ian, Kallie Collins, her fiance and four of her children flew out of Tampa Bay on Tuesday hours before the airport halted flights. However, her fifth child, a 14-year-old boy, wasn’t on the plane with them.

Months earlier, the family had purchased plane tickets for an October visit to her parents in Minnesota. As the storm headed straight toward their Tampa Bay-area home, the airline allowed them to move up their departure date and evacuate.

But her eldest son hadn’t wanted to come along back when they scheduled the trip, and they couldn’t afford to add a ticket for him.

“Leaving your child behind in a situation like this is just horrible,” she said. “I felt so guilty.”

The family had spent all of its savings, a total $1,100, on hurricane preparations like storage for their valuables and medical supplies for her two children with special needs, Collins said. Ultimately, she found a brother-in-law who could shelter her son at his home in Jacksonville.

“With our savings depleted, plus inflation, we’re in a really, really tough financial spot,” Collins said. “I have no idea how we’re going to get through this.”

Collins is hardly the only person fleeing Hurricane Ian who faced dire financial choices in recent days.

More than 2.5 million Floridians fell under an evacuation order on Wednesday as the hurricane barreled toward the state, where 13% of people live in poverty and the median annual household income is about $58,000.

For low- and middle-income households, the costs of evacuation can force individuals to put themselves in harm’s way, go into credit card debt or rely on support from family members and charity, advocates and experts said.

“The insecurity that so many people in this country are facing — you see it play out during a hurricane,” Mechele Dickerson, a professor at the University of Texas Law School who has studied the costs of living through a hurricane, told ABC News.

“The evacuations show the same thing we saw during COVID,” she added. “As soon as everything was shut down, the disparities were on display.”

Evacuating Hurricane Ian is unaffordable for many

During Hurricane Harvey, which struck Texas and Louisiana in 2017, hurricane evacuation cost households an average of $1,200, David Bierling, a researcher at A&M’s Texas Transportation Institute and Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, told the Texas Observer. Costs add up from transportation, lodging, food and lost wages, his research showed.

That sudden financial burden would prove out of reach for most Americans. More than half of people across the U.S. cannot afford to cover a $1,000 emergency, according to a Bankrate survey in January.

Many people cannot afford to evacuate because they lack a car and the savings to pay for alternate transportation, Dickerson said, noting the costs of staying at a hotel also exceed many household budgets.

Further, people who work for hourly wages often cannot afford to miss days or weeks of work as they shelter elsewhere, Dickerson added. “If somebody could be making money if they stay, there’s also the income component,” she said.

‘For low-income people, this is a disaster’

Still, many people have chosen to evacuate from the path of Hurricane Ian, even as they struggle to afford basic needs, said Vanessa Tinsley, the executive director of a Miami-area food bank called Bridge to Hope.

A local influx of evacuees has dramatically increased the number of people seeking food, she said.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook,” Tinsley told ABC News. “The increased need is enormous.”

Bridge to Hope, which typically provides food to 100 clients by appointment each day, saw the number of appointments shoot up to 156 on Thursday, she added. Tinsley hired two additional staff members to work the food pantry, nearly doubling a staff that usually stands at three. The heightened need will continue for at least a month, she said.

“For low-income people, this is a disaster,” she said. “The food budget is the last flexible piece they have.”

“You can’t call the bank and say, ‘I need a lower car payment,'” she added. “You can’t lower your car insurance, the cost of your housing, your utility bill.”

Jasmine King, a customer service representative for Enterprise Rent-A-Car who makes $16 per hour, evacuated from the Western coastal city of Bradenton on Tuesday night with her five children.

Staying with her kids at a hotel near the Miami airport, King faces $178 per night for lodging as she suffers lost wages from missing her job. In all, King’s savings have dwindled to $240, she said on Thursday, adding that she hopes to go home as soon as possible when the roads are navigable.

“This experience has been an eye-opener,” she told ABC News. “It’s not just the glitz and glam of living in a state like Florida, but do you have a financial backup plan if something goes wrong?”

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