Photo Credit of Bill Chappell
Hurricane Ian is headed for the west coast of Florida with wind speeds hitting 155 miles per hour. The hurricane hit Florida as a Category 4 on landfall. This comes after decimating Florida’s southern coast. The west coast of Florida hasn’t seen a storm this severe in a long time. As of Thursday, September 29, 2 million people are already out of power. The worst cost is human life which is why 2 million people have been told to evacuate the state. The hurricane's eye is moving onto shore barreling towards Tampa and expected to head up the coast causing bad weather across the south and midwest throughout the coming week.
To prepare for the hurricane, Florida Governor (R) Ron Desantis has stated that he has 42,000 linemen (Energy Workers) on standby ready to start to work on power lines when it is “safe” to fix them. He also said that he has 100 portable cell towers ready to be placed when communication is out between family and first responders.
As of Thursday, the hurricane has slammed Naples and Fort Myers. Many Floridians have evacuated their homes but there also have been a significant number that has chosen to tough through the storm and stay in their homes despite the government's recommendation against it.. This hurricane is an imminent threat to many Floridians who are still in the area\
The comparable hurricane to hit Florida was Hurricane Irma in 2017. Irma reached wind speeds of up to 177 MPH and did catastrophic damage all across Florida. It forced 6 million people to evacuate and killed 129 people. Hurricane Ian is expected to do more damage to Florida than Hurricane Irma back in 2017
According to the New York Times, the storm has already done around 40 billion dollars in uninsured damage across its broad path.The majority of power outages so far have been in Florida's Lee, Collier, and Sarasota Counties. The Lee County Sheriff said that the casualties in southern Florida are already in the hundreds.
Along with precautions already taken by the U.S. and Floridian Government, President Biden warned oil companies to brace for the impact of Hurricane Ian since the Gulf of Mexico has a lot of oil drilling.
. This storm will continue up the coast of Florida and hit Tampa, Jacksonville, and many other Floridian coastal cities. This storm will continue to wreak havoc in Florida over the next few days and its effects will be seen for years to come.