Hurricane Ian made landfall on the southwestern coast of Florida Wednesday afternoon, creating catastrophic storm surge, flash flooding and powerful wind gusts, knocking out power to more than 1.1 million customers.
After gaining strength over the Gulf of Mexico, the Category 4 hurricane made landfall at 3:05 p.m. at Cayo Costa in the Fort Myers area at sustained wind speeds of 150 miles per hour.
Photos and videos of the flooding and storm surge show cars and buildings partially submerged in water, including a fire station in Naples. The storm surge was forecast to reach as much as 18 feet in some parts of the west coast of Florida.
More than 2.5 million people were under an evacuation order prior to the storm. According to CoreLogic, over 7.2 million homes with a combined reconstruction value of $1.6 trillion are within the impact area of the hurricane’s moderate and high flash flood risk bands.
Hurricane Ian marks the fourth strongest hurricane and one of the most dangerous storms to make landfall in Florida’s history. All of Cuba was left without power after Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm on Tuesday.
As of Wednesday at 5 p.m., the majority of customers in Florida’s Lee County had lost power, with hundreds of thousands in the dark in Collier, Charlotte and Sarasota counties combined, according to poweroutage.us.
As the hurricane moves northward, it is expected to continue to dump heavy rain on parts of Florida for the next day or two.
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Before it made landfall on the Gulf coast of Florida, two tornadoes touched down in South Florida, flipping airplanes at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines and uprooting trees. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were spared hurricane-force winds and storm surge, though some flooding was reported.
Here are photos of the hurricane’s destruction: