Air Force hurricane hunters confirmed that Ian gained strength over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico after it hit Cuba, knocking out the country’s power grid and leaving the entire island without power. Ian was centered about 60 miles (95 kilometers) west-southwest of Naples at 10 a.m., swirling toward the coast at 10 mph (17 kph). “This is going to be a nasty nasty day, two days,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said early Wednesday, stressing that people in Ian’s path along the coast should rush to the safest possible shelter and stay there. The massive storm appeared on track to make landfall somewhere north of Fort Myers and about 125 miles (201 kilometers) south of Tampa, sparing the Bay Area a rare direct hit from a hurricane. The area is popular with retirees and tourists drawn by pristine white-sand beaches and long barrier islands, which forecasters said could be completely inundated. Destructive storms could push up to 12 to 18 feet (3.7 to 5.5 meters) of water along nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coastline, from Bonita Beach north to Fort Myers and Charlotte Harbor to Englewood, the hurricane. warned the center. Precipitation near land may exceed 18 inches (46 cm). “It’s time to dive in and prepare for the storm,” DeSantis said. “Do what you have to do to stay safe. If you are where this storm is approaching, you are already in dangerous conditions. It’s going to get a lot worse very quickly.” More than 2.5 million people were ordered to evacuate, but by law no one could be forced to leave. The governor said the state has 30,000 linemen, urban search and rescue teams and 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and elsewhere ready to help once the weather clears. Florida residents rushed before the crash to board their homes, stash valuables upstairs and join long lines of cars leaving the coast. “There’s nothing you can do about natural disasters,” said Vinod Nair, who drove inland from the Tampa area with his wife, son, dog and two kittens in search of a hotel in Orlando where they were expected tropical storm winds only. . “We live in a high-risk zone, so we thought it best to evacuate.” Overnight, Hurricane Ian went through a natural cycle when it lost its old eye and formed a new eye. The timing was bad for the Florida coast because the storm got stronger and larger just hours before landfall. Ian went from 120 mph (193 km/h) to 155 mph (250 km/h) in three hours, the second round of rapid intensification in the storm’s life cycle. “At higher intensity you will see more extensive wind damage. The larger wind field means more people will experience those hurricane-force winds,” said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. And “it will really increase the volume of the storm.” Ian’s forward motion shifted slightly to the south, likely sparing Tampa and St. Petersburg for their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921. Instead, the most damaging winds could hit a fast-growing coastline where the population has grown sevenfold since 1970, according to the U.S. Census, which shows Lee County has seen the eighth-highest population growth among its more than 180 counties. Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the past. 50 years. There were 250,000 people in the Fort Myers/Lee County mandatory evacuation zones, and authorities were concerned before the storm that only about 10 percent would leave. Gil Gonzalez was taking no chances. He boarded up the windows of his Tampa home with plywood, left sandbags, and he and his wife packed their car with bottled water, flashlights, cellphone batteries and a camp stove before evacuating. “All the valuables, we put them upstairs at a friend’s house,” Gonzalez said. Airports in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Key West were closed, as were Disney World and Sea World theme parks in Orlando in anticipation of the storm. Hotels along the coast were either full or closed, and with flights canceled, some tourists planned to join locals in emergency shelters. Ash Dugney warily watched the ocean water pump up under a Tampa Bay pier, wondering how strong the wave would be on the way back. He said he doesn’t trust Tampa’s storm drainage system to keep the tuxedo rental business on the corner safe from flooding he said happened in his neighborhood even during mild storms. “I don’t care about the wind and the rain and stuff like that, I just care about the flood,” Dugney said, adding that he carried essentials from the store and lifted other items up to waist height. The exact location of the spill was still uncertain, but with Tropical Storm Ian’s winds extending 175 miles (280 kilometers) from its center, flash flooding was possible across the state. Risks include the contaminated tailings of Florida’s phosphate fertilizer mining industry, more than 1 billion tons of slightly radioactive waste contained in huge lakes that could overflow in heavy rains. Parts of Florida’s east coast also faced a storm surge threat, and isolated tornadoes spun out of the storm long before landfall. A tornado damaged small planes and a hangar at North Perry Airport, west of Hollywood along the Atlantic coast. Florida Power and Light warned those in Ian’s path to be without power for days. As a precaution, hundreds of residents were evacuated from several nursing homes in the Tampa area, where hospitals were also transporting some patients. Parts of Georgia and South Carolina could also see flooding rains and some coastal blowing on Saturday. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp preemptively declared a state of emergency, ordering 500 National Guard troops on standby to respond as needed. Before turning toward Florida, Ian pummeled Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province with sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h) and wreaked havoc on the island nation’s world-famous smoke belt. No deaths were reported. Local government station TelePinar reported severe damage to the main hospital in the city of Pinar del Rio, posting on Twitter photos of collapsed roofs, widespread debris and uprooted trees. Some fled the affected area on foot, carrying their children, while buses tried to evacuate others through flooded streets. Others chose to stay in their damaged homes. “It was horrible,” Pinar del Rio resident Yusimi Palacios said inside her damaged home. “But here we are alive and I only ask the Cuban revolution to help me with a roof and a mattress.”
Associated Press contributors include Christina Mesquita in Havana, Cuba. Cody Jackson in Tampa, Florida. Freida Frisaro in Miami. Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Florida. Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida. Seth Borenstein in Washington and Bobby Caina Calvan in New York.
