Hurricane Ian Tracker: Sturm meets land when a million stays without electricity

28. September 2022

Sophie Müller

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Hurricane Ian ended up on Florida's golf coast, hit the coast with wind speeds of 240 km/h, triggered catastrophic floods and supplied thousands of households with electricity.

The first impact occurred in Cayo Costa, about 100 miles south of Tampa, reported the National Hurricane Center.

In the nearby Fort Myers, dramatic photos and videos showed houses that were already under water, and cars that drove along the streets. In Naples, further south, whipping winds crashed performance transformers that exploded when they opened on the floor and inflamed small fires.

already a million people are without electricity.

The hurricane of category four - which is only 2 miles per hour away from one of the category five - will probably be particularly devastating due to a fatal combination of wind speed, precipitation and storm surge.

Gusts of up to 300 km/h will probably cut trees and distribute rubble over a large area. Catastrophic storm surges could drive 12 to 18 feet (3.6 to 5.5 meters) water over more than 250 miles coastline. In addition to the misery, up to 24 inches are expected in the next 48 hours.

"This will be an evil, evil day, two days," said the governor of Florida, Ron Desantis.

"It will be much worse very quickly, so please stay in the crouch."

More than 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation order, but nobody could be forced by law. The governor said that the state has 30,000 linemen, urban search and rescue teams and 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and elsewhere, which are ready to help as soon as the weather becomes clearer.

President Joe Biden promised the Floridians: "We will be there every step" when the federal government sent 300 ambulances with medical teams to the west coast of the state.

Orlando Airport hired the company this morning, while Tampa Airport was closed last night.

This morning the Telegraph St. Petersburg visited the Gulf Coast, where the police prevented non -residents from reaching the coast.

A few hours before the hurricane moved in, palm branches had been torn from the trees by mighty gusts.

Ash Dugney, who was near a pier in Tampa Bay today, said that he does not trust that the city's drainage system protects its smoking rental business from flooding.

"I don't care about the wind and the rain and such things, I only take care of the floods," he said, adding that he had brought the bare essentials out of business and other items to a height above the hip.

Within half an hour after the hurricane was hit on land, some electricity had already failed in Tampa.

Before Ian went ashore in Florida, it crossed Cuba, where the entire power grid collapsed and 11 million people in the dark.

When the hurricane conditions spread, prognostics warned of an impending catastrophe that only occurs once in a generation.

an could have had fatal consequences off the coast when the US border patrol said 23 migrants were missing after their boat had dropped. Four surviving Cubans swam ashore in the Florida Keys.

Source: The Telegraph