Hurricane Ian is expected to affect millions of people across Florida.
Punta Gorda:
Hurricane Ian made landfall on Florida’s southwest coast as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday with strong winds and torrential rain threatening to cause “catastrophic” damage and flooding.
The National Hurricane Center said the eye of the storm was “extremely dangerous” and made landfall on Cayo Costa barrier island, west of Fort Myers, at 3:55 p.m. (1905 GMT).
Hurricane Ian moves through the Caribbean
Dramatic television footage showed rising water engulfing roads and washing away cars as the storm hit the coastal city of Naples south of Fort Myers.
The NHC said Ian was experiencing maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km per hour) as it made landfall and has “caused high tides, winds and catastrophic flooding in peninsular Florida.”
Ian is expected to affect several million people across Florida and in the southeastern states of Georgia and South Carolina and may have claimed the first casualty.
The US Border Patrol said 20 migrants were missing after their boat sank. Four Cuban survivors swam to shore in the Florida Keys and three were rescued at sea by the coast guard.
As hurricane conditions spread, forecasters warned of a possible once-in-a-lifetime disaster.
“This is going to be a storm we’ve been talking about for years to come,” said National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. “It’s a historic event.”
Punta Gorda, north of Fort Myers, was being hit by torrential rain and empty streets as howling winds tore palm leaves and rattled power poles.
About 2.5 million people have been subject to mandatory evacuation orders in a dozen Florida coastal counties, with several dozen shelters set up and others recommended to evacuate voluntarily.
For those deciding to weather the storm, authorities stressed that it was too late to flee and that people should cower and stay indoors.
‘Major impacts’
With winds of 150 mph when it made landfall, Ian was just 7 mph below a Category 5 magnitude – the strongest on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Airports in Tampa and Orlando have suspended all commercial flights, and 850,000 homes have lost power.
But that’s a “significant drop” from the expected outage for the next 48 hours, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said.
“This is going to be a bad, nasty, two-day day,” he added.
Authorities have warned with up to 61 centimeters (61 centimeters) of rain expected to fall in areas of the so-called Sunshine State, and high tides could reach 12 to 18 feet of devastation. (3.6 to 5.5 meters). in serious emergency conditions.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” the NHC warned.
The storm was set to move over central Florida before emerging in the Atlantic late Thursday.
‘There’s nothing left here’
Ian a day earlier had plunged all of Cuba into darkness after hitting the western part of the country as a Category 3 hurricane and knocking out the island’s power grid.
“Desolation and devastation. These are terrible hours. Nothing is left here,” a 70-year-old resident of the western city of Pinar del Rio was quoted by son of journalist Lazaro Manuel Alonso as saying. said in a social media post.
At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, Cuban state media reported.
In the United States, the Pentagon says 3,200 National Guard troops have been called up in Florida, and another 1,800 are on the way.
DeSantis said state and federal response agencies have dispatched thousands of staff to respond to the storm.
“There will be thousands of Floridians who need help rebuilding,” he said.
As climate change warms the ocean surface, the number of strong tropical storms, or tornadoes, with stronger winds and more rainfall is likely to increase.
However, the total number of tornadoes may not.
According to Gary Lackmann, a professor of atmospheric science at North Carolina State University, studies have also uncovered a potential link between climate change and rapid intensity — when a tropical storm is relatively weak. progress to a Category 3 or higher storm within 24 hours. as happened with Ian.
“There is still consensus that there will be fewer storms, but the strongest will get stronger,” Lackmann told AFP.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
