William Brangham:

Judy, the scale of destruction here is just incredibly vast.

Out on the coast, which is about a mile in that direction, we saw what the storm surge did to those communities. That wall of water just ripped buildings right off their foundations.

Further inland, which is where we are right now, the destruction is much more vast. It's over a much bigger area. And it's largely the wind that brought down these trees. Everywhere we go, we see trees that have come down. They have pulled power lines down. They have damaged people's houses.

I mean, the street behind me right now is probably the clearest road we have seen all day long. You can probably hear chain saws behind me.

Everyone is working to try to clean their house as best they can, put a tarp on the roof if the rains come again. But, basically, nobody has water. Nobody has power. The grocery storms are closed, the gas stations are closed. So how long residents here can keep living like this is not clear.

But they have months and months before anything gets back to normal here.