Hurricane Ian hits the coast of Florida with 155 mile-per-hour winds

2 years ago 128

A class 4 tempest made landfall successful Florida connected Wednesday afternoon, displacing millions of residents and causing terrible flooding and destruction

Environment 28 September 2022

By Corryn Wetzel

Image of Hurricane Ian hitting the westbound seashore of Florida

Hurricane Ian made landfall connected the westbound seashore of Florida Wednesday day astir 1pm eastbound time, blasting the cities of Tampa and Fort Myers with wind, rainfall and seawater.

The class 4 tempest was moving astir 16 kilometres per hr erstwhile it deed Florida’s confederate tip. According to the National Weather Service, the hurricane is expected to tube up toward Orlando aboriginal contiguous earlier continuing its way north.

“This tempest is incredibly dangerous, to authorities the obvious. It’s life-threatening,” said US President Joe Biden successful opening remarks astatine the White House Conference connected Hunger, Nutrition, and Health yesterday. “Storm warnings are real, the evacuation notices are real, the information is real.”

Earlier this week, Florida officials issued evacuation orders for millions of residents successful the astir susceptible counties successful the storm’s path. Hurricane Ian was conscionable shy of the astir unsafe category 5 threshold connected Wednesday morning, with upwind speeds up to 250 kilometres per hour.

Officials are peculiarly acrophobic astir the harm caused by beardown winds pushing waves of seawater inland, called tempest surge. Surges arsenic precocious arsenic 3.5 to 5.5 metres above crushed level are expected on the westbound seashore of the authorities adjacent the metropolis of Fort Myers.

As of Wednesday morning, arsenic overmuch arsenic 60 centimetres of rainfall was predicted successful the south-west portion of the state, which has resulted successful unprecedented flooding. The National Weather Service anticipates that astir rainfall successful the authorities volition hap today, Thursday and Friday.

Millions of Florida residents are expected to suffer power. Before making landfall successful Florida, Hurricane Ian knocked retired powerfulness for 11 cardinal radical successful Cuba connected Tuesday nighttime and killed 2 residents.

According to the White House, hundreds of unit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and thousands from the National Guard volition beryllium connected the crushed to connection food, h2o and structure to Floridians successful the aftermath of the storm.

Hurricane Ian is expected to weaken successful strength arsenic it travels northbound done Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina this weekend. Ian is the ninth named tempest of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane play and is apt made much severe by human-caused clime change.