![]() Hurricane warnings have been issued for not only southwest Florida, but also much of central Florida from coast to coast.Ī number of other weather advisories have also been issued throughout Florida. Ian is expected to retain hurricane strength through the day and into tomorrow as the center of the storm moves northeast over the Florida Peninsula, passing close to Orlando and Daytona Beach, before moving back into the Atlantic Ocean Thursday afternoon. “There’s quite a bit of chaos on the streets.”ĭeSantis said storm surge from Ian has hit up to 12 feet in some areas.”It is our meteorologist’s view that the storm surge has likely peaked and will be less in the coming hours,” he said. We’re seeing trees nearly bent in half,” Frank Loni, an architect from California staying in Fort Myers Beach for the storm, said midday Wednesday. We’re seeing cars and boats float down the street. Officials in Cape Coral and Punta Gorda reported significant impacts, and the storm surge set records for the highest water levels ever observed in Fort Myers and Naples. Nearly 2 million Florida utility customers were without power as of 6 p.m., according to. Ian weakened to a Category 1 hurricane by Wednesday night as it moved across central Florida, churning sustained winds of 90 mph. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday Ian will rank as one of the top five hurricanes to ever hit the Florida peninsula, behind Hurricanes Andrew (1992) and Michael (2018). At this point, Hurricane Ian is tied for the strongest storm to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula, matching the wind speed of Hurricane Charley in 2004. The storm made landfall as a Category 4 near Cayo Costa around 3:05 p.m., with winds near 150 mph, according to the hurricane center. Debris could also be seen flying down the street and the only vehicle visible in the city had “STORMCHASER” written on the side. Trees were either knocked down or standing and stripped bare. In Punta Gorda, CNN’s Randi Kaye took shelter in a parking garage as she described how the streets were devoid of people and cars. and is in place until further notice, while Charlotte County’s begins at 9 p.m. Lee and Charlotte counties have also implemented curfews. Thursday, the county government tweeted Wednesday. “You can’t imagine the calls,” the post read.Ī mandatory curfew was put in place for all of Collier County beginning at 10 p.m. To make matters worse, the Lee County’s 911 system is down and calls are be rerouted to Collier County Sheriff, according to the post. Possibly until the water recedes,” a post on the county’s Facebook page read. Some are reporting water coming into their house but not life threatening. “Some are reporting life threatening medical emergencies in deep water. We are still collecting numbers from other areas. “Water is everywhere,” according to a Sheriff’s Office statement late Wednesday, which added that “our East Naples deputies did 30 rescue missions today. Spell could not specify how many calls have come in at this time nor comment on injuries. “At this point the majority of our 911 calls are water rescues,” Collier County Sheriff’s Office Chief Stephanie Spell told CNN in a phone call. The Sheriff’s Office said it’s in “call triage mode” and getting numerous calls of people trapped by water. In Collier County, authorities have been inundated with water rescue calls. “There’s still plenty of onshore flow along the coast keeping water levels elevated, so while the peak surge values will decrease here relative to previous value, I still expect waters to be up for awhile and the need to maintain the storm surge warnings,” Fritz said.
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