HURRICANE IAN SWAMPS FLORIDA

‘The worst is yet to come’: Storm traps people in houses, floods streets and buildings, knocks out power to 1.1 million homes as it moves inland

The Category 4 storm has reached the state, prompting an order for 2.5 million people to evacuate from its path

Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the United States, swamped southwest Florida on Wednesday, turning streets into rivers, knocking out power to 1.8 million people and threatening catastrophic damage further inland.

A coastal sheriff’s office reported that it was getting many calls from people trapped in flooded homes. Desperate people posted to Facebook and other social sites, pleading for rescue for themselves or loved ones. Some video showed debris-covered water sloshing toward homes’ eaves.

The hurricane’s centre made landfall near Cayo Costa, a protected barrier island just west of heavily populated Fort Myers.

Mark Pritchett stepped outside his home in Venice around the time the hurricane churned ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, about55 kilometres to the south. He called it “terrifying.”

“I literally couldn’t stand against the wind,” Mr. Pritchett wrote in a text message. “Rain shooting like needles. My street is a river. Limbs and trees down. And the worst is yet to come.”

The Category 4 storm slammed the coast with 241 km/ hwinds and pushed a wall of storm surge accumulated during its slow march over the Gulf. More than 1.8 million Florida homes and businesses were without electricity, according to PowerOutage.us. Nearly every home and business in three counties was without power.

The storm previously tore into Cuba, killing two people and bringing down the country’s electrical grid.

About 2.5 million people were ordered to evacuate southwest Florida before Ian hit, but by law no one could be forced to flee.

News anchors at Fort Myers television station WINK had to abandon their usual desk and continue storm coverage from another location in their newsroom because water was pushing into their building near the Caloosahatchee River.

Though expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it marches inland at about 14 km/h, Ian’s hurricane force winds were likely to be felt well into Central Florida. Hours after landfall, top sustained winds had dropped to 185 km/h, making it a Category 3 hurricane. Still, storm surges as high as six feet (two metres) were expected on the opposite side of the state, in northeast Florida.

“This is going to be a nasty nasty day, two days,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, urging people in Ian’s path along the Atlantic coast to rush to the safest possible shelter and stay there.

Sheriff Bull Prummell of Charlotte County, just north of Fort Myers, announced a curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. “for lifesaving purposes,” saying violators may face second-degree misdemeanour charges.

Jackson Boone left his home near the Gulf coast and hunkered down at his law office in Venice with employees and their pets. Mr. Boone at one point opened a door to howling wind and rain flying sideways.

“We’re seeing tree damage, horizontal rain, very high wind,” Mr. Boone said by phone. “We have a 50-plus-year-old oak tree that has toppled over.”

In Naples, the first floor of a fire station was inundated with about three feet (one metre) of water and firefighters worked to salvage gear from a fire truck stuck outside the garage in even deeper water, a video posted by the Naples Fire Department showed. Naples is in Collier County, where the sheriff’s department reported on Facebook that it was getting “a significant number of calls of people trapped by water in their homes” and that it would prioritize reaching people “reporting life threatening medical emergencies in deep water.”

Ian’s strength at landfall tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane when measured by wind speed to strike the U.S. Among the other storms was Hurricane Charley, which hit nearly the same spot on Florida’s coast in August, 2004, killing 10 people and inflicting $14-billion in damage.

Ian had strengthened rapidly overnight, prompting Fort Myers handyman Tom Hawver to abandon his plan to weather the hurricane at home. He headed across the state to Fort Lauderdale.

“We were going to stay and then just decided when we got up, and they said 155 mph winds,” Mr. Hawver said. “We don’t have a generator. I just don’t see the advantage of sitting there in the dark, in a hot house, watching water come in.”

Florida residents rushed ahead of landfall to board up homes, stash prized belongings on upper floors and join long lines of cars leaving the shore.

Some decided to try and ride out the storm. Jared Lewis, a Tampa delivery driver, said his home has withstood hurricanes in the past, though not as powerful as Ian.

“It is kind of scary, makes you a bit anxious,” Mr. Lewis said. “After the last year of not having any, now you go to a Category 4 or 5.”

Ian made landfall more than 160 kilometres south of Tampa and St. Petersburg, sparing the densely populated Tampa Bay area from its first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.

Flash floods were possible all across Florida. Hazards include the polluted leftovers of Florida’s phosphate fertilizer mining industry, more than one billion tonnes of slightly radioactive waste contained in enormous ponds that could overflow in heavy rains.

The federal government sent 300 ambulances with medical teams and was ready to truck in 3.7 million meals and 3.5 million litres of water once the storm passes.

“We’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, to help Florida get moving again,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday. “And we’ll be there every step of the way. That’s my absolute commitment to the people of the state of Florida.”