Ian was downgraded to a tropical storm as it continued to move northeast through central Florida, with a massive and deadly surge of water and catastrophic winds that are poised to make it one of the costliest storms in US history.
The storm hurricane made landfall west of Fort Myers near Cayo Costa shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday local time as a Category 4 hurricane. Almost all of Florida, home to 21 million people, prepared for widespread power outages and flooding. More than 2 million people have been ordered or ordered to flee. The storm is expected to cause more than $67 billion in damage and loss, and global shipping is already drifting off course.
“This is going to be a tragic event,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Wednesday as the storm approached the shore. “It’s something that’s going to be there for days, weeks, months and unfortunately in some circumstances even years.”
A storm of this magnitude is a severe test for Florida’s infrastructure due to its low-lying, densely populated coastal areas that are prone to flooding. It comes as climate change has fueled extreme weather around the world this year, including deadly floods in Kentucky and Pakistan, a European heat wave that killed more than 2,000 people in Portugal and Spain and a drought incessant in the western United States.
The timestamps conform to the Eastern standard.
Ian downgraded to tropical storm (5 a.m. Thursday)
Ian has been downgraded to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, according to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center. As a result, hurricane warnings along Florida’s east and west coasts were downgraded to tropical storm warnings. The storm was about 40 miles (70 kilometers) southeast of Orlando, the National Hurricane Center said. Ian will approach the South Carolina coast on Friday, then move inland again.
Ian plans to emerge above Atlantic waters (2 a.m. Thursday)
The storm was about 89 miles south-southeast of Orlando at 2 a.m. and was expected to cross central Florida and then emerge over the Atlantic Ocean later Thursday. Winds were around 75 mph, down from a peak of 150 mph earlier. About 2.3 million homes and businesses are without power, according to PowerOutage.us.
Storm weakens to Category 1 hurricane (11 p.m. Wednesday)
Ian’s wind speed dropped to 90 mph at 11 p.m., meaning it’s now a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the National Hurricane Center.
2 million customers without electricity in Florida (10 p.m.)
More than 2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida on Wednesday evening even as the winds from Hurricane Ian continued to subside, according to PowerOutage.us.
The storm, now a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, was about 80 miles south of Orlando at 10 p.m. local time. According to National Hurricane Center.
Global shipping diverted from the storm’s path through Florida and into the Atlantic before winding toward Savannah, Georgia, the third-busiest U.S. container hub. More than 173 super yachts were moored in Florida when the storm hit, mostly along the Gold Coast from Miami to Palm Beach County.
Storm threatens to cause tornadoes in battered Florida (5:20 p.m.)
Tornado watches were issued in East Central Florida until 1 a.m. ET as Ian tears up the area.
“You should make the same preparations as if it were a tornado passing over your house,” Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, said during a Wednesday briefing. “Go into an interior room with no windows and have things on hand so you can protect your head and body from debris like a blanket, mattress, or even a helmet.”
Cuban migrant boat sinks off Florida, 23 missing (5:04 p.m.)
The US Coast Guard said it was looking for 23 missing migrants near the southern tip of the Florida Keys after their boat sank as Hurricane Ian pounded the Gulf Coast.
In a series of tweets, the US Coast Guard said at least four Cuban migrants were able to swim to shore near Stock Island – just north of Key West – after their boat sank “due to bad weather. time”.
Cuban migration to the United States has hit decade highs as the communist island is mired in economic turmoil and power outages.
Ian drove through western Cuba on Tuesday, knocking out power across the island before heading to Florida.
Read more: Cuban exodus to US hits record high, surpassing 1980 crisis
The storm is the fifth strongest to make landfall in the United States (4:38 p.m.)
Hurricane Ian made landfall tying the record as the fifth strongest to ever make landfall in the continental United States, wrote Yale Climate Connection meteorologists Bob Henson and Jeff Masters.
Phil Klotzbach, hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, tweeted Phil Klotzbach, hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. The strongest was the Labor Day storm of 1935 with winds of 185 mph on landfall. Ian is tied with the Florida Keys storm of 1919 and Hurricane Charley, which hit the same area in 2004.
Ian will likely do a lot more damage than Charley because it’s a much larger storm, Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a tweet.
Ian joins the Grim chapter in the record books (3:12 p.m.)
Only four storms have hit the continental United States with winds stronger than Ian since modern record keeping began in 1851.
These include the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Camille in 1969, Andrew in 1992 and Michael, which hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018, according to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado. State University.
Andrew and Michael were among the 10 costliest in US history, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
Read more: The 10 costliest US tropical storms
Hard blow for the insurance market (3:12 p.m.)
Ian threatens to further upend Florida’s already volatile home insurance market. Larger insurers have reduced their presence in the state to avoid losses caused by the Atlantic hurricanes, and small underwriters still active there have been forced to raise premiums and reduce coverage to keep up with the rate of litigation and fraud. So far this year, six insurers that underwrite policies in the Sunshine State have been declared insolvent, and a major storm could stretch the finances of still-standing businesses.
Photo: by Bloomberg
Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Topics
Wind storm