Hurricane Ian on Wednesday began lashing Florida’s Gulf Coast with powerful winds and drenching rain, prompting authorities to tell residents it was too late to evacuate as the eye of the storm inched toward shore with close to Category 5 power.
At 11 a.m. ET, Ian was around 80 kilometres southwest of Punta Gorda, Fla., with sustained winds of 250 kilometres per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
That was just shy of a Category 5 designation, which is the most severe storm classification with sustained winds of at least 252 kilometres per hour, though Ian was expected to weaken after hitting land, the center said.
Hurricane Ian: Official warns people to stay inside in path of ‘potentially devastating’ winds
Forecasters say Ian would unleash wind-driven high surf, torrential rains that may cause coastal flooding of up to 12 feet (3.7 metres) along with intense thunderstorms and possible tornadoes.
“I’ve been around for a long time; these are big numbers,” said Jamie Rhome, acting director with the National Hurricane Center.
“I haven’t seen numbers like this many times in my career.”
An uprooted tree, toppled by strong winds from the outer bands of Hurricane Ian, rests in a parking lot of a shopping centre on Sept. 28 in Cooper City, Fla.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
Earlier this week, authorities told more than 2.5 million residents to evacuate, but some, like Mark Feinman, a professional musician in St. Petersburg, chose to stay put.
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“There’s absolutely no one on the roads here,” Feinman, 36, said early on Wednesday. “The sky is this weird, ominous gray, and you can feel the wind gusts and the rain hits every little while. You can feel it in the air. My ears popped.”
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Feinman said he does not regret his decision to stay; he feels his house is secure, and fortunately for him, the storm jogged to the south of earlier forecasts, which showed it making a direct hit on the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.
“We still expect it to get bad here. But I’ve boarded up, put down sandbags. We’re stocked up on supplies. I guess ready or not, it’s coming.”
