A weakened but still formidable Hurricane Ian chugged across Florida toward the Atlantic seaboard on Thursday after thrashing the state\u2019s Gulf Coast with fierce winds, torrential downpours and raging surf that flooded oceanside communities.
\nIan blasted ashore with catastrophic force on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 4 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, and quickly plunged the region\u2019s flat, low-lying landscape into a scene of devastation.
\nIan\u2019s winds, making it one of the most intense storms to strike the US mainland in recent years, diminished significantly after nightfall. Within eight hours of its arrival, Ian was downgraded to Category 1 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with top sustained winds of 90 mph, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported.
\nHowever, the sprawling, slow-moving hurricane continued to unleash drenching rains as it crept farther inland, threatening to trigger extensive additional flooding.
\n\u201cThis storm is doing a number on the state of Florida,\u201d said Governor Ron DeSantis, who asked US President Joe Biden to approve a major federal disaster declaration providing a wide range of US emergency aid to the entire state.
\nThere were no official reports of storm-related fatalities or serious injuries. An unspecified number of people were known to be stranded and in need of help in \u201chigh-risk\u201d areas after choosing to ride out the storm at home rather than heed evacuation orders, but they were beyond the immediate reach of rescue crews, DeSantis said.
\nSeparately, US border authorities said 20 Cuban migrants were missing after their boat sank off the Florida coast as Ian neared the coast on Wednesday.
\nAt 10 pm eastern daylight time on Wednesday, strong gusts and horizontal rains were still lashing Venice, Florida, a city of about 25,000 residents some 32 miles northwest of where Ian first came ashore at the barrier island of Cayo Costa seven hours earlier.
\nLarger structures remained mostly intact, but small, residential areas off of Highway 41, a major artery through the area, were left in a shambles.
\nDowned trees and power lines covered roadways to the point that the asphalt was not visible, roofs were ripped off of some homes, and water was pouring into neighbourhoods from seemingly all directions.
\nA large open lot in front of a Winn Dixie grocery store became a lake, with white-capping waters reaching the trunks of some the cars parked there. Power was out in larger swaths of the area, with communications nearly impossible in many spots.
\nIan was forecast to weaken further as it crossed the Florida peninsula on a northeasterly track, and was expected to reach the Atlantic Coast on Thursday afternoon, possibly as a tropical storm, according to the NHC.
\nBut Ian remained a potent force. Up to 30 inches of rain was forecast to fall on parts of central Florida, the NHC said. By late Wednesday night, the storm had knocked out power to at least two million homes and businesses statewide, utilities reported.
\nHours before, Florida\u2019s idyllic southwestern shoreline, dotted with sandy beaches, coastal towns and mobile home parks, was rapidly transformed into a disaster zone inundated by seawater.
\nVideo images of the storm\u2019s fury on local TV and social media showed floodwater nearly reaching rooftops in some communities, sweeping away cars and the ruins of homes as palm trees were bent almost in half.
\nHaving pummelled Cuba on Tuesday, leaving the island nation without power for hours, Ian swept into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico and reached its peak wind speeds of 155 mph, just shy of a Category 5 designation, shortly before landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
\nDeSantis said Ian had generated life-threatening storm surges \u2014 waves of wind-driven seawater rushing in along the coast \u2014 of up to 12 feet in some places.
\nForecasters also warned of intense thunderstorms and possible tornadoes.
\n\u201cThis is a storm that we will talk about for many years to come, an historic event,\u201d said Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service.
\nBy comparison, Hurricane Michael came ashore in Florida\u2019s panhandle in 2018 with steady winds of 155 mph, while Ida last year packed sustained winds of 150 mph when it landed in Louisiana.
\nEven as Ian lashed the coast before it finally swept ashore, authorities warned residents it was too late for anyone who had yet to evacuate to safely do so. Earlier this week, more than 2.5 million residents had been told to evacuate.
\nMany mobile home residents took refuge in local schools and other facilities converted to emergency shelters. The area\u2019s numerous assisted-living facilities were mostly evacuated, too.
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