ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA (AP) – Forecasters said Hurricane Ian has become an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm as it approaches Florida’s west coast.
The United States (US) National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 5am yesterday that Ian now has top sustained winds of 140 mph and is centred about 75 miles west-southwest of Naples, Florida. It said Ian is moving north at a forward speed of 10 mph.
The major hurricane has prompted warnings of possibly dangerous storm surge along the state’s heavily populated Gulf Coast from Bonita Beach to the Tampa Bay region.
Winds, rain have begun intensifying, a day after Ian battered the western tip of Cuba as a dangerous major hurricane.
The storm left more than one million people there without power before intensifying over the Gulf of Mexico on approach to the Florida peninsula’s west coast.
Florida residents rushed to board up their homes, stash precious belongings on upper floors and flee from oncoming hurricane, fearing the monstrous storm that knocked out power to all of Cuba and its 11 million people would slam into their state’s west coast with catastrophic winds and flooding yesterday.
“You can’t do anything about natural disasters,” said Vinod Nair, who drove inland from the Tampa area on Tuesday with his wife, son, dog and two kittens seeking a hotel in the tourist district of Orlando. “We live in a high risk zone, so we thought it best to evacuate.”
Nair and his family were among at least 2.5 million Florida residents ordered to evacuate in anticipation of a powerful storm surge, high winds and flooding rains.
Fuelled by the warm Gulf of Mexico, Ian was gaining strength after plowing over western Cuba’s prized tobacco-growing region as a Category 3 storm on Tuesday.
The US National Hurricane Center predicted Ian could become a catastrophic Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 130 mph before roaring ashore on Florida’s southwest coast yesterday afternoon.
