27).īiden spoke Tuesday to the mayors of Tampa, St. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida on Saturday, and personnel from FEMA and state National Guards were readying for landfall ( E&E News PM, Sept. The White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been preparing for Ian’s impacts. DeSantis was keeping residents updated on the track of Hurricane Ian. Ron DeSantis (left) spoke as he stood with Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, during a Monday news conference in Largo, Fla. Detente with DeSantis Republican Florida Gov. Officials had begun to restore some power on Wednesday ( see related story). Ian already battered Cuba on Tuesday, taking out the country’s electric grid and leaving the island without power, AP reported. Hurricane conditions are also possible from northeastern Florida to portions of South Carolina on Thursday and Friday, the NHC said. Forecasters have warned of widespread, catastrophic flooding, including record river flooding, across central Florida.įlorida won’t be the only state hit by Ian officials with the National Hurricane Center predicted widespread flooding in southeast Georgia and coastal South Carolina.

Ian was moving faster and stronger than predicted, according to the National Hurricane Center. “This will cause life-threatening storm surge,” he said. Guthrie warned that the storm surge is significantly greater than Charley’s, however. “It does have a Charley-esque feel,” said Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, at a Wednesday morning briefing. As it continued to approach, the storm’s path began churning up memories of Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 storm that plowed into Florida’s west coast near Fort Meyers in August 2004, causing catastrophic damage. Ian’s path has shifted dramatically from its original forecast, and the storm continued to wobble as it edged closer to the west coast. The city of Miami reported a record 3.5 inches of rain on Tuesday, and tornadoes popped up along parts of the east coast, far from the storm’s path. Ian has already brought wild and record-setting weather to the state one day before the worst of the storm approached. Parts of that region are now under a hurricane warning. What’s more, Ian has remained more intact than expected, which has increased the threat of hurricane-force winds to go all the way to the east coast. I haven’t seen numbers like this many times in my career.” Pointing to a map predicting peak storm surge, Rhome said Wednesday, “I’ve been around for a long time. Weather forecasters also increased the projected peak storm surge to as high as 18 feet in some areas along Florida’s west coast. This map tracks the forecast path of Hurricane Ian and highlights the probable storm surge flooding along the coast of Florida. Only four Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the United States since 1900, according to NOAA.

With maximum sustained winds of up to 155 mph, DeSantis said, Ian was “knocking on the door of a Category 5 storm.” Category 5 is the highest rating based on a hurricane’s maximum sustained wind speed. That figure is expected to dramatically increase by Thursday.Ī “devastating event” is “starting to unfold, unfortunately for the residents of south, southwest Florida,” National Hurricane Center acting Director Jamie Rhome said Wednesday as the hurricane’s eyewall approached Sanibel Island just before 12 p.m. Roughly 300,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to.

Ian strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane early Wednesday, and the National Hurricane Center said it was a “catastrophic hurricane” that was “on the threshold” of Category 5 status at 11 a.m. More than 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders as the storm approached, the Associated Press reported.

Florida hurricane track history map