Mail Online

Sunshine state feels the fury of Hurricane Ian

From Daniel Bates in New York

HURRICANE ian tore into Florida last night with eight million residents in its path.

it hit the state’s west coast with winds of 155mph, two feet of rain and a potentially catastrophic storm surge of 18ft.

Among those affected are 400,000 British ex-pats. Around 2.5million of the state’s residents have been ordered to evacuate their homes.

Those that decided to stay put were warned that police would not be able to reach them and some police chiefs grounded their entire forces because conditions were so dangerous. The Category 4 storm – Category 5 is the most severe – made landfall just after 12pm local time near the city of Fort Myers, 100 miles south of Tampa, and was expected to weaken to a Category 1 as it moved north today through Orlando.

Theme parks in Orlando including Disney, Universal Studios and SeaWorld are all closed while airports in Tampa and Orlando were shut and more than 3,600 flights cancelled across the US.

Around 800,000 people were without power, a number which was expected to rise significantly while the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for four counties in Florida. Officials say at least 15 hospitals and 40 nursing homes have been evacuated. The cost of the damage was predicted to be at least $45billion (£41.5billion), with the Tampa area the worst affected.

Only four hurricanes on record have made landfall in the US with maximum sustained winds of greater than 155mph.

The last storm of this magnitude to hit Tampa was in 1921 which brought a storm surge of 11ft, 120mph winds and caused eight deaths. Back then the population of Tampa was around 400,000 but that figure has increased by three million and the coastline is far more developed.

Michael Brennan, acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, warned of ‘catastrophic wind damage’ and ‘widespread catastrophic flooding’. He warned that ‘you’re not going to survive if you are in an area with 16ft of inundation’.

With that amount of water ‘breaking waves can destroy buildings and the foundations down to the slab’, he said.

At a press conference Florida

governor Ron DeSantis said about 30,000 electricity linemen, numerous urban search and rescue teams and 7,000 National Guard troops were on standby for when the hurricane passes.

He said: ‘Pray for people. This is a major, major storm. This is going to be one of those historic storms that will have a profound impact on our state’. President Joe Biden said that his government was ‘ready to help in every single way possible’.

He said: ‘This storm is incredibly dangerous, it’s life threatening, you should obey all warnings from emergency officials. Don’t take anything for granted. The danger is real’. Deanne Criswell of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said: ‘We’re really concerned about all of the inland flooding.

‘[The storm] is bringing with it a lot of rain and it’s going to move slowly, which means people in the path are going to experience impacts for a long period of time’.

On its route north, Ian flooded homes in Key West in southern Florida. The entire island of Cuba and its population of 11million was left without power by 125mph winds which ripped off roofs and threw debris on the streets.

In Florida’s south-east, several small planes were overturned at North Perry airport and numerous trees came crashing down.

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2022-09-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

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