Nearly two million people without electricity, thousands trapped in their homes by water
Ian did not disappoint. It spared the city of Tampa, but entered through the west coast of Florida, between Fort Myers and Sarasota, with hurricane winds of 250 kilometers per hour, becoming one of the most powerful hurricanes in the history of the United States, which almost touched the category 5 when making landfall in Cayo Costa. The howling of the wind, similar to that of a freight train, has accompanied in the darkness of the night those who have seen the water grow around them by the light of the lanterns.
Only four hurricanes have been more powerful than this one, but although it is the speed of the winds that is measured for its classification, Ian had other, more dangerous characteristics. The size of its mass extended over 800 kilometers, with a 48-kilometer eye in which any of its predecessors could fit. The worst, however, was the macabre slowness with which he moved. The slower, the more rain it unloaded on the areas that it punished mercilessly for hours and hours.
It made landfall near Punta Gorda, flooded the streets of Fort Myers until it left businesses under water and throughout the night it was expected to cross the Florida peninsula diagonally, from coast to coast, to leave today weakened by Orlando or Daytona Beach even with category 2, it was expected. That will not prevent it from continuing to cause flooding in its wake and from picking up strength again when it enters the sea, on its way to the Carolinas and Virginia, where the Joe Biden administration has already declared a state of emergency in advance to mobilize resources quickly.
Behind him, he left nearly two million people in the dark last night, as he did two days earlier in Cuba, when the entire island lost power. In Florida last night it was only 10% of the population, but authorities fear what they will find today when the sun rises and the waters recede. Everything suggests that the islands off the coast of Fort Myers, where it first made US landfall, have been devastated by the impact.
no communications
Cayo Costa takes the title of having been its landing strip, but most of the population in that rosary of islands had complied with the evacuation orders, aware that in the best of cases they would remain isolated. There today there are not even communications. “Procrastination is not conducive to survival,” warned John Copenhaver, former director of the federal emergency management agency.
The bulk of the desperate calls of those who had been trapped by the floods came from the interior of the peninsula, where the rise of the water occurred at such a speed that many did not have time to leave their homes. Nor was it advisable. Hurricane-force winds had destroyed power lines. The authorities warned that throwing the boat into the water to rescue the neighbors could leave the Samaritans electrocuted, not to mention what the monster could do with one of the tornado-shaped snorts that it exhaled as it passed.
Half a century ago Ian would have traversed sparsely populated areas, but in recent decades the population between Fort Myers and Cape Coral has grown more than 600%, according to the census. The pandemic has brought an unaccounted-for flow that lacks experience with these types of devastating weather events. The baptism of him with a hurricane that breaks historical records is also a reminder of the dangerous consequences of climate change, as catastrophic as this messenger
Two dead in Cuba
Hurricane ‘Ian’ has left two dead in Cuba and none in Florida yet, “but in between, 23 rafters have been left missing,” the authorities say. US border patrols and the Monroe County sheriff have learned of this from four survivors who managed to swim to the small island of Stock, along Highway 1 through the Florida Keys. As agent Walter Slosar reported on Twitter, “the coast guard has launched an operation to search for other possible survivors of the boat, which according to the castaways would have sunk when it capsized in the middle of the storm.”
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