Hurricane Ian slammed into southwest Florida on Wednesday afternoon, with sustained winds up to 155 mph and a life-threatening storm surge as high as 12 feet. It left as many as hundreds of possible casualties as homes floated away, roads turned into rivers and more than 2.5 million people lost electricity.
The storm was worst in the Naples, Fort Myers and Port Charlotte areas. Tampa, a bit north, where the last hurricane was in 1921, was spared the worst of Ian. But parts of Tampa Bay emptied out before the storm hit, with the lost water returning as a wind-driven storm surge.
The storm then moved northeast across the state to Orlando and the Jacksonville area, threatening flooding and surges along the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Coast. It weakened a bit, but weather forecasters warned it could become stronger as it passed over the warmer waters of the Atlantic, possibly making another landfall in Georgia or South Carolina. As far north as Virginia, the governor declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the storm. (See the NOAA projection below.)
In Fort Myers, the flooding was so severe that a shark was seen swimming in the city streets. Entire houses were washed away. About 50 feet of the causeway to the barrier islands of Sanibel and Captiva were washed out just after the Fort Myers toll booth. It is the only land link to the low-lying islands, where roads were underwater.
In Naples, an MSNBC reporter said that “everything has been wiped out” after wind gusts up to 190 mph. The manager of Lee County, home of Fort Myers, said in a press conference that “our community, in some respects, has been decimated.” The Legacy Marina in Fort Myers, a favorite of many people on the Great Loop, was hit hard.
The roof was torn off the ICU of a hospital in Charlotte. Nine hospitals in Lee County were left without running water, and FEMA was considering evacuating them.
The sheriff of Lee County warned that there could be “hundreds” of casualties there, particularly among people who did not evacuate. He said many people had lived through hurricane warnings before and had become “complacent.”
Other officials warned people to avoid water running through streets and parks. The water could contain waste, toxic chemicals and debris.
First estimates were that Florida had suffered at least $70 billion in damage. Two-thirds of the state’s orange groves were at least partially destroyed. Read more:
