Waning hurricane creeps across Florida
VENICE: A weakened but still formidable Hurricane Ian chugged across Florida towards the Atlantic seaboard yesterday after thrashing the state’s Gulf Coast with fierce winds, torrential downpours and raging surf that flooded oceanside communities.
Ian blasted ashore with catastrophic force as a category 4 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 241kmh, and quickly plunged the region’s flat, lowlying landscape into a scene of devastation.
Ian’s winds, making it one of the most intense storms to strike the United States mainland in recent years, diminished significantly after nightfall.
Within eight hours of its arrival, Ian was downgraded to category 1 on the fivestep SaffirSimpson scale, with top sustained winds of 150kmh, the National Hurricane Centre reported.
However, the sprawling, slowmoving hurricane continued to unleash drenching rains as it crept further inland, threatening to trigger extensive additional flooding.
There were no official reports of stormrelated fatalities or serious injuries.
An unspecified number of people were known to be stranded and in need of help in highrisk areas after choosing to ride out the storm at home rather than heed evacuation orders, but they were beyond the immediate reach of rescue crews, Governor Ron DeSantis said.
Separately, United States border authorities said 20 Cuban migrants were missing after their boat sank off the Florida coast as Ian neared the coast.
Strong gusts and horizontal rains were still lashing Venice, a city of about 25,000 residents some 50km northwest of where Ian first came ashore at the barrier island of Cayo Costa seven hours earlier.
Larger structures remained mostly intact, but small, residential areas off of Highway 41 — a major artery through the area — were left in shambles. Florida’s idyllic southwestern shoreline, dotted with sandy beaches, coastal towns and mobile home parks, was rapidly transformed into a disaster zone inundated by seawater.
Video images of the storm’s fury on local TV and social media showed floodwater nearly reaching rooftops in some communities, sweeping away cars and the ruins of homes as palm trees were bent almost in half.
Ian was forecast to weaken further as it crossed the Florida peninsula on a northeasterly track, and was expected to reach the Atlantic Coast late yesterday, possibly as a tropical storm, the NHC said.