Hurricane Ian hits Cuba and expected to intensify before reaching Florida
Hurricane Ian has torn into western Cuba with nothing to stop it from intensifying into a catastrophic category 4 hurricane before its expected landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
Tampa and St Petersburg in Florida could get their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
Ian made landfall on Tuesday morning in Cuba’s Pinar del Río province, where officials had set up 55 shelters, evacuated 50,000 people, rushed in emergency personnel and took steps to protect crops in the island’s main tobacco-growing region.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said “significant wind and storm surge impacts” were occurring in western Cuba, with Ian sustaining top winds of 125mph (205km/h) as it moved over the city of Pinar del Río.
After passing over Cuba, Ian was forecast to strengthen even more over warm Gulf of Mexico waters, with winds reaching 140mph before making landfall again. Tropical storm-force winds were expected in Florida late on Tuesday, reaching hurricane force on Wednesday.
The NHC said there was a 100% chance of damaging winds and water along Florida’s west coast, issuing a hurricane warning from Bonita Beach north through Tampa Bay to the Anclote River.
“Please treat this storm seriously. It’s the real deal. This is not a drill,” Hillsborough county emergency management director, Timothy Dudley, said on Monday at a news conference on storm preparations in Tampa.
Western Cuba is relatively lightly populated, but with tropical storm force winds extending outward 115 miles from Ian’s centre, Cuba’s capital wasn’t spared. Havana’s residents openly worried about flooding ahead of the storm, with workers unclogging storm drains and fishers taking their boats out of the water.
“I am very scared because my house gets completely flooded, with water up to here,” Adyz Ladron said, pointing to his chest.
In Havana’s El Fanguito, a poor neighbourhood near the Almendares River, residents packed up what they could.
“I hope we escape this one because it would be the end of us. We already have so little,” health worker Abel Rodrigues said.
Ian’s forward movement was expected to slow over the Gulf, enabling the hurricane to grow wider and stronger before it brings punishing wind and water to Florida’s west coast.
Forecasters said the surge of ocean water could reach 10ft (3 metres) if it peaks at high tide and rainfall could total 16in (41cm) with as much as 24in in isolated areas. Coastal communities could be inundated.
Floridians lined up for hours in Tampa to collect bags of sand and cleared store shelves of bottled water. Governor Ron DeSantis declared a statewide emergency and warned that Ian could lash large areas of the state, knocking out power and interrupting fuel supplies.
“You have a significant storm that may end up being a category 4 hurricane,” DeSantis said at a news conference on Monday. “That’s going to cause a huge amount of storm surge. You’re going to have flood events. You’re going to have a lot of different impacts.”
Damaging winds and flooding was expected across the entire peninsula as Ian moves north, reaching into Georgia, South Carolina and other parts of the south-eastern US on Friday and Sunday, the NHC said.