MIAMI – A life-threatening hurricane has made landfall on Florida’s south-western coast, bringing heavy rain, high winds and catastrophic storm surges.
Hurricane Ian has sustained wind speeds up to 250km/h, just shy of the threshold for category five storms – the strongest classification.
Millions of Floridians with homes in Ian’s path are under evacuation orders.
Those who remained are facing one of the most dangerous storms to hit the US in decades.
More than one million Florida residents have lost power, after Ian knocked out power in all of Cuba.
“Pray for people,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday, adding that Ian was of “historic” proportions.
Much of Ian’s damage will likely result from its massive storm surges – walls of water that are carried by hurricane-force winds onto land.
“The Gulf of Mexico is literally moving inland across the beaches into the communities,” said Erik Salna, associate director of the International Hurricane Research Center. “That invasion of water is just hard to even imagine until you see it for real.”
Statistically and historically, water kills more people than wind, Salna said. And Ian is “a worst-case scenario amount of water”.
Almost all of Florida’s west coast is under some form of storm surge warning. Areas near Fort Myers – a popular tourist spot, which has taken the brunt of the storm thus far – may see storm surges up to 18ft (5.4m) tall.
Ian officially made landfall at around 3:10 p.m. local time, striking Cayo Costa, an island just west of Fort Myers.
The storm was initially expected to make a direct hit on the densely populated Tampa Bay and St Petersburg region – the first direct hit on this area in 101 years – but the storm made contact further south. (BBC)
