News

Hurricane Ian makes landfall in South Carolina after Florida destruction


FORT MYERS: A revived storm Ian crash into South Carolina shoreline on Friday afternoon, making another landing after a destructive march on Florida The peninsula swept away homes and stranded thousands along the state’s Gulf Coast.
The Category 1 hurricane made landfall near Georgetown, about 60 miles (97 km) north of the historic city of Charleston, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 km/h), according to the Hurricane Center. United States of America.
Ian is expected to bring life-threatening flooding, high tides and winds to South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. Officials in all three states have warned residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.
The storm that made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday was one of the strongest ever to make landfall in the mainland United States, turning beach towns into disaster zones.
Kevin Guthrie, director of the state’s Division of Emergency Management, said there have been reports of at least 21 deaths in Florida, said at a morning briefing. He emphasized that some of the reports are still unconfirmed.
By mid-morning on Friday, drivers were asked to leave the roads in Charleston County, South Carolina, and Charleston International Airport was closed due to high winds. Spokesperson Kelsey Barlow said the county, which has about 400,000 residents, has two shelters open and a third on standby.
Even before Ian arrived, Charleston had seen torrential rain. Video clips on social media showed several streets in the port city flooded with several inches of water, which is particularly prone to flooding.
A city-commissioned report released in November 2020 found that approximately 90% of all residential properties are vulnerable to flood tides.
The National Weather Service warning of “life-threatening” high tides along 125 miles (201 km) of the South Carolina coast, from Palms Island near Charleston to the North Carolina border.
Even so, the high tides are not expected to be as severe as the 12-foot (3.7 meters) surges that made landfall in parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast earlier this week.
“We’re at the heart of it right now,” said Matt Storen, a police sergeant on the Isle of Palms, a small beach community on a barrier island in South Carolina. police sergeant on the Isle of Palms, a small beach community on a barrier island in South Carolina. “There’s a lot of power outage, we’re having some trees cut down.”
Storen said gusts of 60 mph (97 km/h) and some beach erosion have occurred.
‘BIG WALLOP’
Two days after Ian first hit Florida, the extent of the damage there became increasingly apparent.
“It’s obviously packed a big wall,” Governor Ron DeSantis said at a briefing.
Guthrie said about 10,000 people have not been identified, but many of them are likely in shelters or without electricity. He said he expected the number to fall “organically” in the coming days.
According to tracking service PowerOutage.us, just under 2 million homes and businesses were without power on Friday.
Fort Myers, a city close to where the eye of the storm first made landfall, took a major hit, with many homes destroyed. Off the coast, Sanibel Island, a popular destination for vacationers and retirees, was cut off when a causeway became impassable.
Hundreds of besieged Fort Myers residents lined up at a Home Depot that opened early Friday in the city’s east, hoping to buy gas cans, generators, bottled water and anything else needed. to exist. The line stretched like a football field.
Many people said they feel city and state governments are doing the best they can to help people, but the lack of communication and uncertainty about the future are weighing on them.
Sarah Sodre-Crot and Marco Martins, a married couple and both 22 years old, immigrated from Brazil with their families five years ago, looking for a better life than when they were back home. They weathered the storm in their home east of Fort Myers.
“I know the government is doing all they can, but we feel at a loss, like we have no answers. Will the energy come back in a week? In a month? We just want to know so I can plan my life a little bit.” Sodre-Crot said.
Rita Chambers, a 70-year-old retiree who was born in Jamaica and has lived in Fort Myers since 1998, said Ian was unlike any hurricane she had ever seen.
“And I’ve had hurricanes since I was a kid!” Chambers said, who moved to New York as a teenager.
She watched the winds and floods tear through the porch of her home in Cape Coral. Despite everything, she said she wasn’t thinking about leaving Florida.
“I would rather shovel sand from my Florida home than shovel snow in New York,” she said. “If you live in paradise, you must endure a storm.”

news7f

News7F: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button