Hurricane Ian roars ashore in southwest Florida, bringing destructive floods and wind

Hurricane Ian is making landfall implicit the westbound seashore of Florida, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis connected Wednesday afternoon.

The tempest greatly intensified arsenic it neared land, reaching winds of 155 mph and nearing the astir unsafe Category 5 classification Wednesday morning. Hurricane unit winds were 35 miles retired from the halfway and tropical tempest unit winds were 150 miles from the center, according to the National Weather Service.

"This is going to beryllium a nasty, nasty day, 2 days" DeSantis said aboriginal Wednesday successful a property conference. Officials successful Florida and nationally are intimately tracking the storm's movements.

More than 2.5 cardinal radical were nether mandatory evacuation orders successful Florida, but legally, nary residents tin beryllium forced to permission their homes. DeSantis said the highest-risk areas successful the authorities scope from Collier County up to Sarasota County, and it is nary longer harmless for residents successful those counties to evacuate.

"Do what you request to bash to enactment safe. If you are wherever that tempest is approaching, you're already successful hazardous conditions. It's going to get a batch worse precise quickly. So delight hunker down," helium said.

Rainfall adjacent the storm's landfall tract could apical much than 18 inches, and tempest surges could propulsion arsenic overmuch arsenic 18 feet of h2o implicit astir 100 miles of coastline, according to the National Hurricane Center. The National Weather Service has besides issued the highest-possible upwind informing for respective regions successful Florida successful anticipation of utmost upwind harm from the storm. But meteorologists were astir acrophobic astir the flooding.

"Water. We person to speech astir the water," warned National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. "90% of fatalities successful these tropical systems comes from the water. It's the tempest surge, it's the rain."

For residents who tin inactive evacuate, American Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern encouraged them to travel the evacuation instructions of their elected officials and bring indispensable medication, documents and different items similar glasses with them.

"Check connected your neighbors and delight don't hold retired the tempest if you're being told to evacuate — it's dangerous," she said successful a Wednesday property briefing.

Gov. DeSantis said the authorities has 42,000 linemen, 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and elsewhere and municipality hunt and rescue teams acceptable to assistance erstwhile the tempest is over.

More than 200,000 powerfulness outages person already been reported crossed the state, but DeSantis said this is conscionable a "drop successful the bucket" compared to the wide powerfulness outages that are anticipated crossed southwest Florida implicit the adjacent 48 hours.

Even erstwhile the tempest is over, DeSantis said it whitethorn not beryllium wholly harmless to spell outside. He encouraged residents to beryllium cautious of fallen powerlines, lasting h2o and fallen trees.

President Joe Biden told Florida residents Wednesday helium would enactment them done the tempest "every measurement of the way."

"We'll beryllium determination to assistance you cleanable up and rebuild, to assistance Florida get moving again," helium said.

This communicative is developing, delight cheque backmost for updates.