More than 2.6mn people in Florida were estimated to be without power on Thursday morning after Hurricane Ian ploughed into the south-west of the state, inundating the coastline and tearing through infrastructure and property.
Hurricane Ian made landfall at about 3.05pm Eastern time on Wednesday and was causing “catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding”, the National Hurricane Center said. Maximum sustained winds of 150mph gave it a category four storm rating, the second-strongest classification in meteorologists’ five-tier scale.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis warned the storm would continue to move across the state on Thursday, causing “major, major impacts”. “This storm is doing a number on the state of Florida,” he said.
Millions of Florida residents had been under evacuation orders, although on Wednesday morning, DeSantis said it was too late to leave Collier, Lee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties, where the storm was approaching.
PowerOutage. US, a website tracking the power outages, showed a sharp increase in the number of customers who lost power overnight Wednesday, and by Thursday morning those enduring a blackout had risen from 1.8mn to 2.6mn.
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 the state.
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