NEW SMYRNA BEACH — Hurricane Ian delivered a final blow to coastal Volusia County as it left the state, flooding neighborhoods, swamping shopping plazas and sending water into businesses on New Smyrna Beach’s main Flagler Avenue tourist strip.

Brian Pemrick, owner of Tayton O’Brians, vacuumed up 125 gallons of floodwater Friday morning inside his Flagler Avenue bar.

He expected to reopen this weekend, but he said friends did even worse in the storm with their homes ruined by flooding. He said Ian was the worst storm he’d experienced.

“We have never had rain like that,” Pemrick said.

Floodwaters covered shopping plaza after shopping plaza along State Road 44, the main thoroughfare into New Smyrna Beach. A National Guard truck could be seen driving through the waters with entire neighborhoods inundated.

Volusia County has reported two storm-related deaths. One was a 68-year-old New Smyrna Beach-area man who was unable to escape the floodwaters in his home. The other was a 72-year-old Deltona man who had gone outside during the storm to drain his pool and was found in a canal behind his home.

Just up the road from New Smyrna Beach in Port Orange, floodwater covered Dunlawton Avenue, the main route through the Daytona Beach suburb. Florida Fish and Wildlife officers rescued people using tucks and airboats. Several stalled cars were left stranded on flooded roads.

Skylar Clemens, 25, paddled in a kayak to check on her belongings she’d stacked on tables and counters in her apartment. She’d heard five feet of water was in her home.

She rode out the storm at her mother’s house, watching the bands of Ian’s torrential rainfall on the weather radar.

“It was just sitting there — like it’s not moving,” she recalled.

At the Pavilion at Port Orange, a Chuck E. Cheese buckled like an accordion. One of the walls had collapsed. Others buildings in the shopping plaza appeared to be unscathed.

Ian toppled numerous trees, scattered branches and other debris and knocked over signs throughout Volusia County.

Back in New Smyrna Beach, Kristin Chmielewski, general manager of the Flagler Tavern, rode out the storm at the restaurant, sleeping on an air mattress. Ian was much worst than expected with waist-high water flowing through Flagler Avenue like a river, she said.

“I never in my life thought I would see water like this on Flagler Avenue,” Chmielewski said, adding that her neighborhood of Venetian Bay is submerged and she can’t get home to her family in their fourth-story condo.

One employee canoed out of her neighborhood to catch a ride to work, she said.

The popular gathering spot reopened by noon, serving drinks to storm-weary locals. Some businesses on Flagler Avenue stayed dry, while others sustained some flooding damage. A large metal sign that had blown off a retail shop rested on the sidewalk.

The Breakers, a popular spot right on the beach, was also serving drinks by about noon.

Chmielewski called her restaurant the “unsinkable Molly Brown” because it is the last one to close and the first one to reopen during hurricanes.

“It couldn’t sink us,” she said. “It couldn’t sink Flagler. It couldn’t sink New Smyrna Beach.”

sswisher@orlandosentinel.com