Hurricane Ian makes landfall as Category 4 storm in Florida

Hurricane Ian dumped torrential rains and blasted 150 mph winds as it roared ashore in southwest Florida on Wednesday afternoon.

The slow-moving storm officially made landfall around Cayo Costa at 3:05 p.m., the National Hurricane Center said. The barrier island is about 20 miles west of downtown Fort Myers.

The hardest-hit areas were expected to get 30 inches of rain, while at least a foot was projected to fall throughout southwest, central and northeast Florida. Waters rose to at least 7 feet Wednesday night at a NOAA National Ocean Service station in Fort Myers.

Ian kicked up massive storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Even before landfall, the water reached the upper levels of two-story homes in Fort Myers Beach. The combination of high winds and flash floods ripped multiple homes from their foundations, sending them into the middle of swamped streets.

Ian earned its terrifying Category 4 status with its winds, but the rain could be a bigger issue across much of Florida. The storm was moving slowly before it struck land. It slowed down even more as it hovered over the Gulf Coast from Tampa to Naples, deluging the area with rain.

“Widespread, life-threatening catastrophic flash, urban and river flooding is expected across central Florida,” the National Hurricane Center said in an alert. More than 2.5 million people had been ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm.

Four hours after Ian made landfall, more than 1.5 million customers in Florida didn’t have electricity, according to PowerOutage.us. That number was expected to rise as the storm continued its assault. Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electric company, warned that power restoration would take days in some places.

Hurricane-force winds caused damage from Tampa to Naples and reached farther inland as well. Ian ripped shingles from roofs, sparked fires with downed power lines and spawned at least two small tornadoes. The city of Fort Myers declared a 48-hour curfew, which began at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

“This is going to be a nasty, nasty day, two days,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said early Wednesday. “This is going to be a rough stretch.”

Veteran storm-chaser Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel was nearly blown over by debris while covering the hurricane. He got out of harm’s way just before a torn-off street sign came flying down the street.

Fort Myers resident Tom Hawver said he was planning to ride out the storm at home — then he heard about Ian’s winds reaching 155 mph overnight. He left for Fort Lauderdale.

“We don’t have a generator,” Hawver said. “I just don’t see the advantage of sitting there in the dark, in a hot house, watching water come in your house.”

The storm also created a bizarre scene in Tampa Bay, where the waters rapidly receded and created the appearance of calm.

“Do not walk out into receding water in Tampa Bay or Charlotte Harbor — the water WILL return through storm surge and poses a life-threatening risk,” the Florida Division of Emergency Management tweeted.

Florida wasn’t the only state worried about Ian. The storm’s projected path takes it into eastern Georgia and South Carolina by the weekend, prompting the governors of both states to declare preemptive states of emergency. While Ian may stop gaining strength as it moves north, the storm is still expected to dump buckets of rain on the region.

“Ian could be near hurricane strength when it moves over the Florida east coast tomorrow, and when it approaches the northeastern Florida, Georgia and South Carolina coasts late Friday,” the NHC said.

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Before striking Florida, Ian ripped through western Cuba, killing at least two people and knocking out the island’s power grid.

In anticipation of the hurricane, President Biden directed the heads of federal agencies across the federal government to “surge all available resources” to Florida’s highest-risk regions.

More than 1,300 emergency personnel were sent to Florida in advance of the storm. They arrived before airports shuttered operations in Tampa, Orlando and down the Gulf Coast in preparation for the carnage. An estimated 7,000 National Guard troops, from Florida and elsewhere, were in the state as well.

“This is going to be a storm we talk about for many years to come,” warned Ken Graham, the director of the National Weather Service. “It’s a dangerous, life-threatening storm surge.”

The FDNY sent 15 members of its Incident Management Team to help out as needed.

Florida’s peninsula hadn’t seen a 150-mph storm since Hurricane Charley made landfall in nearly the exact same spot in 2004. However, such storms have become increasingly common across the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Michael hit the Florida panhandle with 155 mph winds in 2018; Hurricane Laura slammed Louisiana with 150 mph winds in 2020; and Hurricane Ida followed suit the next year, with the same strength in the same state. Ida later brought record rainfall and deadly flooding to New York and other Northeast cities.

With News Wire Services