Two million without power in Florida as Hurricane Ian moves inland leaving trail of destruction in its wake

29 September 2022, 08:55

More than 2.3 million people have been left without power in Florida after Hurricane Ian made landfall as a category 4 storm overnight.

The storm, one of the most powerful to ever strike the US mainland, has battered south-west Florida with high winds, rain and storm surges as it weakened and moved inland. The storm brought wind speeds of 150mph and storm surge of up to 12ft according local authorities.

The storm is now estimated to be 140 miles wide and has been downgraded from a category 4 to a category one storm.

Florida's Govenor, Ron DeSantis, said in a press conference that storm surge had been the biggest issue: "We have seen life-threatening storm surge, as was predicted," DeSantis said. "We've also seen major flooding in places like Collier County, Sanibel, Fort Myers Beach."

Footage of the storm and its destruction continues to circulate on social media. American meteorologist Mike Seidel posted footage of the storm to Twitter from Fort Myers, adding that he hadn't experienced "anything close to this in over 30 years".

Emergency service workers have been forced to take shelter from the storm, and as darkness fell the scale of the damage remained unclear. Residential areas in Fort Myers Beach and several other coastal cities were almost completely submerged, with buildings damaged and trees and power lines brought down.

In coastal Florida, a local sheriff's office reported that it was getting many calls from people trapped in flooded homes.

Millions of Florida residents remain directly in the path of the storm, which was expected to remain a powerful hurricane with gusts well above 100mph. The storm is forecast to track northeast across Florida, and is predicted to be bearing down on Georgia by 2pm Friday.

The storm surge flooded the lower level emergency room of a hospital in Port Charlotte, whilst fierce winds tore part of the fourth-floor roof from its intensive unit, according to Dr Birgit Bodine - who works at the Florida Fawcett Hospital.

Intensive care staff had to evacuate the sickest patients, some on ventilators, to other floors. The hospital has four floors, but patients were forced into just two because of the damage.

Bodine said incoming storm injuries could make things worse. “The ambulances may be coming soon and we don’t know where to put them in the hospital at this point,” she said. “Because we’re doubled and tripled up.”

Hurricane Ian has already been blamed for several deaths and unprecedented flooding in Cuba, which suffered complete power failure across the island. The island is beginning to restore electricity to regions now the storm has passed on and headed for Florida.

A search for more than 20 people was also underway off the coast of Florida, after a boat carrying migrants from Cuba to the US mainland sank shortly before Hurricane Ian made landfall. Several passengers were rescued from the waters.

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President Joe Biden has promised the full support of federal resources for search and rescue missions and then the recovery effort in Florida: "We’ll be there to help you recover, we’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, [and] to help get Florida moving".

The President added that a declaration of a federal emergency means that thousands of National Guard troops had been activated, and millions of litres of food, water and generators were on their way.

Authorities had warned that those of the 2.5 million people ordered to evacuate that chose to stay would be on their own because conditions were too dangerous for emergency crews to get out to people.

“The response from emergency medical services, fire and police will be stopped,” said Kevin Anderson, the Fort Myers mayor. “So you know those who chose to stay put themselves in that risk.”

Because the storm grew in size to become wider than the Florida peninsula over the last 24 hours, effects were felt miles inland with authorities saying almost all areas facing some kind of threat.

“The majority of the state of Florida is in Ian’s crosshairs,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said.“We need everyone to heed the warnings of their local officials before, during and after the storm.”

Ian’s strength at landfall tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane when measured by wind speed to strike the US.