Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US mainland, swept ashore in south-west Florida on Wednesday afternoon, bringing “catastrophic” 150mph winds and a deadly storm surge of up to 18ft.
The moment of Ian’s official landfall was declared by the National Hurricane Center in Miami to be at Cayo Costa state park, near Fort Myers, at 3.05pm.
But the category 4 storm, fueled by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and estimated to be about 140 miles wide, had lashed the coastline for hours with its combination of punishing winds and surging floodwaters.
Residential areas in Fort Myers Beach and several other coastal cities were completely submerged, buildings were damaged, and trees and power lines brought down. Across the state, more than 800,000 customers were without electricity, which Florida governor Ron DeSantis said was “a drop in the bucket” compared to what was expected to come.
Millions of Florida residents still lay directly in the path of the deadly storm, which was expected to remain a powerful hurricane with gusts well above 100mph as it continued on a path north-east towards Orlando, and the Atlantic coast on Thursday.
“Pray for people,” DeSantis told reporters.
“There’s some storms that really leave an indelible impact … this is going to be one of those historic storms and it’s going to shape the communities in south-west Florida and have a profound impact on our state.
“This is going to be a rough stretch. So we just ask people for their thoughts and their prayers. This is a major, major storm,” he added.
Ian had already been blamed for several deaths and unprecedented flooding in Cuba, which was beginning to restore electricity to regions on Wednesday after a total wipeout of power on the island.
Joe Biden promised the full support of federal resources for search and rescue missions, and then the recovery effort in Florida, which officials warned would be changed forever by the impact of the storm.
“We’ll be there to help you recover, we’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, [and] to help get Florida moving,” the US president said in an address from the White House, adding that his federal emergency declaration means thousands of National Guard troops had been activated and millions of liters of water, food and generators were on their way.
“We’ll be there at every step of the way. That’s my absolute commitment to the people in the state of Florida.”
Ian approached Florida after passing over Cuba and the Caribbean sea as a powerful tropical storm, and building strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
More than 2.5 million people were under evacuation warnings along the western Florida coast, although officials said an unknown number had chosen to stay and attempt to ride out the storm. Authorities warned those who remained would be on their own because conditions were too dangerous for emergency crews to be out.
“The response from emergency medical services, fire and police will be stopped,” said Kevin Anderson, the Fort Myers mayor.
“So you know those who chose to stay put themselves in that risk.”
Ian was originally predicted to make landfall around Tampa, 12o miles further north, before taking a gradual turn to the south and east after moving away from Cuba.
But with the storm’s size having grown wider than the Florida peninsula over the last 24 hours, effects were felt miles inland, and authorities said almost all areas faced some kind of threat.
“The majority of the state of Florida is in Ian’s crosshairs,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said.
“We need everyone to heed the warnings of their local officials before, during and after the storm.”
In Orlando, where a weakening Ian was expected to pass later on Wednesday and overnight on a north-easterly trajectory, Disney, Universal and other theme parks closed for at least two days. Operations at the international airport were also halted.
Tens of thousands of customers across central and southern Florida had lost power by Wednesday lunchtime. DeSantis said about 30,000 electricity linemen, numerous urban search and rescue teams and 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and elsewhere were on standby to help once the weather cleared.
In Broward county on Florida’s south-east coast, overnight tornadoes spawned in the hurricane’s outer bands wrecked a number of small planes at North Perry airport, and felled numerous trees.
In Cuba, the national electricity union said that power would be restored gradually after the total failure of the island’s ageing electricity grid as Ian passed over earlier in the week.
“It’s a process that takes time, it must be done with precision,” Lázaro Guerra Hernández of the Electric Union of Cuba, said. The blackout, he added, was “an exceptional condition – a total of zero” electricity generation.
Earlier, the hurricane made landfall in Pinar del Río province, where officials set up 55 shelters, evacuated 50,000 people and took steps to protect crops in the nation’s main tobacco-growing region. The storm left at least two dead in western Cuba, state-run media reported.
Violent wind gusts shattered windows and ripped metal roofs off homes and buildings.
Ian is the first major hurricane to hit the US this year, and the first to strike Florida since Michael devastated the state’s panhandle in October 2018.
“Ian is expected to make landfall in southwestern Florida in the next few hours as a catastrophic hurricane,” the NHC warned in its late morning advisory.
“Catastrophic storm surge inundation of 12 to 18ft above ground level along with destructive waves are expected somewhere along the southwest Florida coastline [and] catastrophic wind damage is beginning along the southwestern coast of Florida today near the landfall location.”
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.