Hurricane Ian bears down on Florida with ‘catastrophic’ force
Florida was bracing for a “catastrophic” hurricane on Wednesday, as forecasters said it would make landfall with extremely strong winds and storm surges as high as 18ft tall.
The federal government prepared for search and rescue operations across the US state and electric utilities expected widespread power outages as Hurricane Ian churned towards Florida’s south-west coast. The storm was “on the threshold” of category 5, the most severe ranking, with maximum sustained winds approaching 155 miles per hour in a 35-mile radius, the National Hurricane Center said.
The “devastating” Ian will be “a storm we talk about for many years to come”, Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service, said on Wednesday morning. The National Hurricane Center said that “Ian will cause catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding in the Florida peninsula”.
Millions of Florida residents are under evacuation orders, although Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday morning that it was too late to leave Collier, Lee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties, where the storm was already approaching.
Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest power utility, warned of “extensive damage to the electrical infrastructure” and predicted parts of its system would need to be rebuilt after Ian passed through.
Storm surges reaching from between 12 to 18ft were expected to hit the south-west coastline from Englewood to Bonita Beach, the US National Weather Service said. Tampa Bay, however, was drained on Wednesday morning as the hurricane’s counterclockwise winds blew out towards the sea.