Table Of Content
- It’s 6 a.m. on the East Coast. Here’s the latest as Hurricane Ian nears the Carolinas.
- In some parts of southwestern Florida, it’s already too late to evacuate
- The National Hurricane Center implores Floridians to get inside and stay there
- Before Hurricane Ian, Florida’s southwest coast was a place to escape the chaos.
- Hurricane Ian makes landfall in Florida with catastrophic strength: Live updates
The storm will move through the Piedmont fairly quickly Friday night, which is good news for any flooding. The mountains and foothills of North Carolina will be at a greater risk of flooding as the rain lingers through Saturday morning. Beyond the typical severe weather, there are dangerous heat waves, record-breaking cold snaps or even hazardous winds that could impact people's safety. Those instances would cause WCNC Charlotte's Weather Team to tell everyone they should be Weather Aware.
It’s 6 a.m. on the East Coast. Here’s the latest as Hurricane Ian nears the Carolinas.
At a Wednesday morning press conference, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Ian is “knocking on the door of a Category 5 storm” and urged people who have not evacuated to treat the hurricane like a tornado. In Port Charlotte, a hospital’s emergency room flooded and fierce winds ripped away part of the roof, sending water gushing into the intensive care unit. The sickest patients — some on ventilators — were crowded into the middle two floors as the staff prepared for storm victims to arrive, said Dr. Birgit Bodine of HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital. The road into Fort Myers was littered with broken trees, boat trailers and other debris. Cars were left abandoned in the road, having stalled when the storm surge flooded their engines. At 2 p.m., North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and emergency management officials will be speaking about severe weather as the remnants of Hurricane Ian move through.
In some parts of southwestern Florida, it’s already too late to evacuate
Sarasota County canceled trash collection and shut off water services on Siesta and Casey keys. In Collier County, which was also bracing to be struck by Ian, transit services were suspended on Wednesday. Some Florida cities are preemptively shuttering municipal services ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Ian, which is expected to produce dangerous weather conditions across the peninsula.
The National Hurricane Center implores Floridians to get inside and stay there
“for life-saving purposes,” saying violators may face second-degree misdemeanor charges. The storm previously tore into Cuba, killing two people and bringing down the country’s electrical grid. A spokesperson for Duke Energy said the utility company will have extra crews on call. There are also workers in the Midwest ready to deploy to the Carolinas. McMaster also said the state is not experiencing any impact to its fuel supply due to the storm.
Biden warns gas and oil executives against price gouging, post-hurricane
Ian is just shy of a Category 5 storm as it inches closer to official landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast. If its winds increase even a little, that would put it in an exclusively destructive club of storms that pack winds of 157 mph or more. So far, only four storms have been recorded at such an intensity as they made landfall in the continental U.S. — three in Florida and one in Mississippi. The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Ian has made "mainland" landfall south of Punta Gorda near Pirate Harbor. And they say that total debris for that event was under 2 million, like 1.7 million. And that was a fairly small storm, they say that Charley would have fit in Ian's eye.
Before Hurricane Ian, Florida’s southwest coast was a place to escape the chaos.
More than 558,000 of those claims were for residential properties; over 33,000 of the claims were for commercial properties; and almost 600 were from interrupted businesses, according to the data. Nearly 180,000 were for other lines of business, including damaged automobiles. Ian made landfall in Cayo Costa on Sept. 28, 2022, as a category 4 hurricane. In the Orlando area, Orange County firefighters used boats to reach people in a flooded neighborhood. Patients from a nursing home were carried on stretchers across floodwaters to a bus. The hurricane tore through the park of about 60 homes, many of them destroyed or mangled beyond repair, including Goodison’s single-wide home.
The live stream is unavailable as of Thursday morning, with the screen showing a still photo of waves crashing over the pier against a gray sky. The pier has been a hallmark of Naples since it was completed in 1889 (originally to help transport guests to and from the Old Naples Hotel). A recognizable figure at the municipal beach, it stretched 1,000 feet into the Gulf of Mexico and offered panoramic views as well as plenty of space for fishing. Naples Pier — one of the city's most iconic structures and top tourist attractions — has been lost to Hurricane Ian, an official said on Thursday.
Hurricane Ian makes landfall in Florida with catastrophic strength: Live updates
Closer to Charlotte, Channel 9′s Ken Lemon was in northwest Charlotte where residents are also concerned about potential flooding. While all of the attention is focused on the coast, we should remember this storm is big and powerful and expected to retain its hurricane strength far inland. The eye of the storm is expected to come ashore in the 2 to 3 p.m ET timeframe – somewhere in Charlotte or Lee counties. Municipal officials up and down the coast were asking residents to shelter in place, and city services were already suspended in some areas. A slower storm means people will feel the effects of the storm longer. Orlando closed city hall, suspended garbage pick-up and closed public schools and libraries.
Friday afternoon sessions at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse scheduled for Friday have been canceled. Conditions deteriorated quickly along the South Carolina coast Friday morning. Meanwhile, Jim Erbs was at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport on Saturday afternoon waiting to pick up his wife, who was flying in from Orlando. Saturday morning, debris was visible in the Myers Park neighborhood and the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, but much of it amounted to small branches and tree leaves.
Catastrophic storm surge, heavy rain and 150 mph winds wiped out or damaged structures as well as some roads and bridges, with the Fort Myers area particularly impacted. Widespread rainfall amounts of two to six inches are expected across North Carolina going into early Saturday with locally higher totals up to eight inches. This rainfall could lead to flash flooding, coastal storm surge, landslides in the mountains and rising rivers.
Hurricane Ian strikes Port Charlotte hospital from above and below - WTSP.com
Hurricane Ian strikes Port Charlotte hospital from above and below.
Posted: Thu, 29 Sep 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Those efforts will begin today in areas where the winds have dropped and crews can get access (the first step is clearing the roads). NPR's Greg Allen, who is in St. Petersburg, rose early to speak with NPR'sUp First. He says while damage assessments have yet to come in, reports and images during the storm showed massive storm surges, particularly in beachfront communities in Naples and Fort Myers. Emergency responders and county officials are taking to the skies to survey the storm damage and search for people in distress.
Gusty winds will continue on Friday, peaking in the afternoon and into the overnight hours going into Saturday. Most North Carolina counties are under a Wind Advisory into Saturday. To the north in Lee County (Fort Myers) and Charlotte County (Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda) it may get as high as 18 feet. The waves on the barrier islands, such as Pine Island, are growing too. Rhome stressed that while wind and storm surge pose huge threats, heavy rains are not something to take lightly either. He said a wide swath of the state is facing some 10 to 15 inches of rain — in areas with low elevation and at the end of Florida's rainy season, meaning flood potential is high.
Unrelenting and devastating floodwaters continue to pummel Naples, up through Fort Myers, the islands of Sanibel and Captiva, and into Charlotte County. Photos and videos on Twitter show waters at or above roofs in some areas. Cars have floated away, roofs have ripped off and some houses have lifted off their foundations. The hurricane’s outer bands continue to fling tornadoes which are on the ground for brief periods of time.
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