Hurricane Ian made landfall on the southwest coast of Florida near Fort Myers
and Cape Coral. This storm was a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds
of around 150 mph, causing Florida to announce a state of emergency.
For days Hurricane Ian has been wiping out neighborhoods and turning streets
into rivers. Coastal towns have been decimated, homes have been severely flooded
and damaged, and cars have been sent floating in the floods. Millions of people were
under evacuation orders and mandatory curfews were set as the storm hit.
So far officials have confirmed Ian has killed at least 76 people in Florida, but
rescue crews are still reporting more deaths as they search for survivors. More than
1,600 people have been rescued from Ian’s path in parts of southwest and central
Florida since last week.
As of wednesday night, there were over 2 million residents without power from
the storm. That number is still around 613,000 as of monday morning. Officials are
saying some homes and businesses may be without power for weeks or even months
because the storm did so much structural damage. Many are also left without clean tap
water.
“People need to take car of their emotional and mental health, because we’re
really going to need to work together on this,” said Jay Boodheshwar, city manager of
Naples, Florida. “The amount of water we recieved and the height of the surge affected
a lot of infrastructure. There are transformers that are completely fried. It’s not simply
rehanging lines.”
Hurricane Ian is estimated to be the most expensive storm in Florida’s history,
devastating neighborhoods on the western coast to inland cities like Orlando. The storm
may have passed through, but it will take the state of Florida a long time to recover as
Hurricane Ian was one of the worst storms in recent history.