Hurricane Ian made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast on Wednesday as powerful winds, and torrential rains unleashed catastrophic floods and life-threatening storm surges.
One of the strongest to have hit the Florida coast in recent years, the eye of the Category 4 hurricane slammed into the barrier island of Cayo Costa, west of the city of Fort Myers, at 3.05 pm ( IST 12:35 am Thursday.)
Videos doing rounds showed rising water-level, in some areas nearly touching rooftops, and numerous vehicles being swept away.
According to the National Hurricane Centre, Ian was packing maximum sustained winds of 240 kilometres per hour when it made landfall and was already "causing catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding in the Florida peninsula," reported AFP.
Within hours, nearly 2 million homes and establishments in Florida were left without power. Reports quoting the Mayor of Fort Myers, a city in Florida, said approximately 96 per cent of the city is without electricity.
According to the tracker PowerOutage.us., in the hardest-hit southwestern region, 10 counties reported that more than 50% of tracked customers were without power. Eight more counties in southwest, central and northeast Florida reported more than 10,000 customers had no electricity.
"This storm is doing a number on the state of Florida," said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He has also warned of life-threatening storm surges – waves of wind-driven seawater rushing in along the coast – of up to 12 feet (3.7m) in some places.
DeSantis also urged US President Joe Biden to approve a major federal disaster declaration providing a wide range of US emergency aid to the entire state.
The National Weather Service has warned of intense thunderstorms and possible tornadoes. "This is a storm that we will talk about for many years to come, a historic event," Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service told Reuters.
The hurricane was later downgraded to Category 1 as the sprawling, slow-moving storm pushed farther inland. "Hurricane conditions are expected along the east-central Florida coast overnight through early Thursday," the National Hurricane Centre said.
The storm will also bring a continued threat of heavy rain into Thursday. "Widespread, life-threatening catastrophic flooding, with major to record river flooding, will continue across portions of central Florida tonight," the centre added.
It has also warned of "considerable flooding in northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and eastern South Carolina" through the end of the week.
