UPDATED 5:22 P.M.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (Reuters) -A resurgent Hurricane Ian slammed into the South Carolina coast on Friday afternoon, making another landfall after a deadly march across the Florida peninsula that washed away houses and stranded thousands along the state’s Gulf Coast.
The storm swept ashore at 2:05 p.m. (1805 GMT) near Georgetown, a waterfront town about 60 miles (97 km) north of the historic city of Charleston, packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 85 mph (140 kph) as a Category 1 hurricane, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Ian was expected to bring life-threatening flooding, storm surges and winds to South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. Officials in all three states warned residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.
The hurricane struck Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. mainland and then cut a destructive path across the state, transforming beach towns into disaster areas with catastrophic flooding and winds.
There have been reports of at least 21 deaths in Florida, Kevin Guthrie, director of the state’s Division of Emergency Management, said at a morning briefing. He stressed that some of those reports remain unconfirmed.
Ian was forecast to weaken rapidly as it moves inland across the Carolinas and was expected to dissipate over western North Carolina or Virginia late on Saturday, the NHC said.
Georgetown, with a population of about 10,000, is a tourist destination known for its oak-lined streets and more than 50 sites on the National Registry of Historic Places. The town was heavily damaged by 1989’s Hurricane Hugo.
Even before Ian’s arrival, Charleston was seeing torrential rain. Video clips on social media showed several inches of water in some streets in the port city, which is especially prone to flooding.
A city-commissioned report released in November 2020 found that about 90% of all residential properties were vulnerable to storm surge flooding.
Len Cappe, 68, a retired property manager who moved to Charleston two years ago, said Ian was the first big storm he has encountered.
“It’s the wind, it rattles you,” Cappe said. “It’s blowing furiously.”
With the tidal Wando River a block away, Cappe said he was worried about his house and has been glued to his television, watching for updates.
On Pawleys Island, just north of Georgetown, the pier had collapsed into the ocean and town hall was surrounded by water, according to videos and messages posted online by the local police department.
More than 145,000 homes and businesses in the Carolinas were without power, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.
‘FEELING LOST’
Two days after Ian first hit Florida, the extent of the damage there was becoming more apparent.
Some 10,000 people were unaccounted for, Guthrie said, but many of them were likely in shelters or without power. About 1.8 million Florida homes and businesses remained without power on Friday, according to PowerOutage.us.
“You have homes just washing away,” Governor Ron DeSantis said at a briefing on Friday in Lee County, which suffered widespread damage.
President Joe Biden, speaking at the White House, said the hurricane would likely rank among the worst in U.S. history.
“We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction,” he said.
Fort Myers, a city close to where the eye of the storm first came ashore, absorbed a major blow, with numerous houses destroyed. Offshore, Sanibel Island, a popular destination for vacationers and retirees, was cut off when a causeway was rendered impassable.
Hundreds of beleaguered Fort Myers residents lined up at a Home Depot on Friday on the east side of the city, hoping to purchase gas cans, generators, bottled water and other supplies. The line stretched as long as a football field.
Rita Chambers, a 70-year-old retiree who was born in Jamaica and has lived in Fort Myers since 1998, said Ian was unlike any storm she had ever seen.
“And I’ve been in hurricanes since I was a child!” said Chambers, who moved to New York as a teenager.
She watched as the storm tore the porch off her home in Cape Coral. Despite it all, she is not thinking of leaving Florida.
“I would rather shovel sand from my Florida home than shovel the snow in New York,” she said. “If you live in paradise, you have to put up with a hurricane.”
At a mobile home park on San Carlos Island in Fort Myers Beach, trailers had been pushed together by the wind and water. A boat, the “Dreamin,'” lay on its side at a local marina, where another boat had come to rest in a tree.
Deborah Grool, 70, lost her home and vehicles to the storm.
“This is devastating, because it’s not just homes, it’s businesses,” said Grool, a real estate agent who has lived on the island for 45 years.
Her daughter, Katy Bonkowski, who joined her mother to examine the damage, had worried about her parents’ and sister’s decision to stay on the island during the storm.
“Don’t misjudge a hurricane,” Bonkowski said. “I wish my parents would have left. I wish my sister would have left. But they wanted to stay.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien, Sharon Bernstein, Frank McGurty, Jeff Mason and Scott DiSavino; Writing by Joseph Ax and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Mark Porter, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)
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UPDATED 2:02 P.M.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (Reuters) – A resurgent Hurricane Ian slammed into the South Carolina coast on Friday afternoon, making another landfall after a deadly march across the Florida peninsula that washed away houses and stranded thousands along the state’s Gulf Coast.
The now Category 1 storm swept ashore at 2:05 p.m. (1805 GMT) near Georgetown, a waterfront town about 60 miles (97 km) north of the historic city of Charleston, packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 85 mph (140 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Ian was expected to bring life-threatening flooding, storm surges and winds to South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. Officials in all three states warned residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.
The hurricane came ashore on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. mainland, transforming beach towns into disaster areas with catastrophic flooding and winds.
There have been reports of at least 21 deaths in Florida, Kevin Guthrie, director of the state’s Division of Emergency Management, said at a morning briefing. He stressed that some of those reports remain unconfirmed.
Ian was forecast to weaken rapidly as it moves inland across the Carolinas and was expected to dissipate over western North Carolina or Virginia late on Saturday, the NHC said.
Georgetown, with a population of about 10,000, is a tourist destination known for its oak-lined streets and more than 50 sites on the National Registry of Historic Places. The town was heavily damaged by 1989’s Hurricane Hugo.
Even before Ian’s arrival, Charleston was seeing torrential rain. Video clips on social media showed several inches of water in some streets in the port city, which is especially prone to flooding.
A city-commissioned report released in November 2020 found that about 90% of all residential properties were vulnerable to storm surge flooding.
“We are in the heart of it right now,” said Matt Storen, a police sergeant in Isle of Palms, a small beach community on a barrier island in South Carolina. “A lot of power outages, we are getting some downed trees.”
Prior to landfall, Storen said wind gusts were 60 miles per hour (97 kph) and that some beach erosion had already occurred.
More than 145,000 homes and businesses in the Carolinas were without power, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.
‘FEELING LOST’
Two days after Ian first hit Florida, the extent of the damage there was becoming more apparent.
“Clearly it has packed a big wallop,” Governor Ron DeSantis said at a briefing.
Some 10,000 people were unaccounted for, Guthrie said, but many of them were likely in shelters or without power. About 1.8 million Florida homes and businesses remained without power on Friday, according to PowerOutage.us.
President Joe Biden, speaking at the White House, said the hurricane would likely rank among the worst in U.S. history.
“We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction,” he said.
Fort Myers, a city close to where the eye of the storm first came ashore, absorbed a major blow, with numerous houses destroyed. Offshore, Sanibel Island, a popular destination for vacationers and retirees, was cut off when a causeway was rendered impassable.
Hundreds of beleaguered Fort Myers residents lined up at a Home Depot on Friday on the east side of the city, hoping to purchase gas cans, generators, bottled water and other supplies. The line stretched as long as a football field.
Many said they felt city and state governments were doing as much as possible to help people but that the lack of communication and uncertainty about the future weighed heavily on them.
Sarah Sodre-Crot and Marco Martins, a married couple and both 22, immigrated from Brazil with their families five years ago. They rode out the storm in their home in east Fort Myers.
“I know the government is doing everything they can, but we’re feeling lost, like we have no answers. Will energy return in a week? In a month? We just want to know so we can plan our lives a bit,” Sodre-Crot said.
Rita Chambers, a 70-year-old retiree who was born in Jamaica and has lived in Fort Myers since 1998, said Ian was unlike any storm she had ever seen.
“And I’ve been in hurricanes since I was a child!” said Chambers, who moved to New York as a teenager.
She watched as the storm tore the porch right off her home in Cape Coral. Despite it all, she is not thinking of leaving Florida.
“I would rather shovel sand from my Florida home than shovel the snow in New York,” she said. “If you live in paradise, you have to put up with a hurricane.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien, Frank McGurty, Jeff Mason and Scott DiSavino; Writing by Brendan O’Brien and Joseph Ax; Editing by Mark Porter and Bill Berkrot)
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UPDATED 1:35 P.M.
(Reuters) – The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Friday said that Hurricane Ian has made landfall in South Carolina.
The hurricane is located about 55 miles (90 km) northeast of Charleston, South Carolina, with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (140 km/h).
(Reporting by Kavya Guduru in Bengaluru)
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FORT MYERS, Fla. (Reuters) -A resurgent Hurricane Ian barreled toward South Carolina on Friday, a day after carving a path of destruction across the Florida peninsula, washing away houses, causing a causeway to collapse and stranding thousands along the state’s Gulf Coast.
The hurricane led to at least 21 confirmed or unconfirmed deaths in Florida, Kevin Guthrie, director of the state’s Division of Emergency Management, said at a morning briefing. It was the first time a state official offered an estimate of the human toll.
Ian, which had weakened to a tropical storm during its march across Florida, was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane on Thursday as it churned toward South Carolina with maximum sustained wind speeds of 85 mph (140 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The hurricane was forecast to hit north of low-lying Charleston at about 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT) on Friday, bringing potentially life-threatening flooding, storm surges and winds. Hundreds of miles of coastline, stretching from Georgia to North Carolina, were under a hurricane warning.
Officials in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina urged residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.
By mid-morning on Friday in Charleston and Charleston County, South Carolina, everyone was ordered off the roads and the Charleston International Airport was closed because of high winds.
Kelsey Barlow, a spokeswoman for Charleston County, home to more than 400,000 residents, said that the county has two shelters open and a third on standby.
“But it’s too late for people to come to the shelters. The storm is here. Everyone needs to shelter in place, stay off the roads,” Barlow said.
Barlow said a storm surge of more than seven feet was expected, on top of the noon high tide that could bring another six feet of water, causing massive flooding.
With the eye of the storm still hours away, torrential rain had already arrived in Charleston. Video clips on social media showed several inches of water in some streets in the historic port city, which is especially prone to flooding.
Charleston is particularly at risk. A city-commissioned report released in November 2020 found that about 90% of all residential properties were vulnerable to storm surge flooding. Parts of northeast South Carolina, near Charleston, could also experience up to eight inches of rain.
Even so, the expected storm surges were not as severe as those issued by the NHC when the storm was approaching Florida. Edisto Beach, South Carolina, a resort destination about 30 miles south of Charleston, was expected to see a four- to seven-foot surge. That compares to 12-foot surges reported earlier in the week for parts of the Gulf Coast.
‘BIG WALLOP’
Two days after Ian first came ashore on Florida’s Gulf Coast as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. mainland, the extent of the damage there was becoming more apparent.
“Clearly it has packed a big wallop,” Governor Ron DeSantis said at the briefing.
“The response was very, very quick,” he said. “I do think that response made a difference.”
Some 10,000 people were unaccounted for, Guthrie said, but many of them were likely in shelters or without power, making it impossible to check in with loved ones or local officials. He said he expected the number to “organically” shrink in the coming days.
Fort Myers, a city close to where the eye of the storm first came ashore, absorbed a major blow, with numerous houses destroyed by 150 mph winds and a powerful storm surge. Offshore, Sanibel Island, a popular destination for vacationers and retirees, was cut off when a causeway was rendered impassable.
Hundreds of beleaguered Fort Myers residents lined up at a Home Depot that opened early Friday on the east side of the city, hoping to purchase gas cans, generators, bottled water and anything else needed to survive. The line stretched for 100 yards.
Many said they felt the city and state governments were doing everything possible to help people but said the lack of communication and uncertainty about how they would go on living in the area weighed heavily on them.
Sarah Sodre-Crot and Marco Martins, a married couple and both 22, immigrated from Brazil with their families five years ago, seeking a better life than they had back home. They rode out the storm in their home in east Fort Myers.
“I know the government is doing everything they can, but we’re feeling lost, like we have no answers. Will energy return in a week? In a month? We just want to know so we can plan our lives a bit,” Sodre-Crot said.
About 1.99 million homes and businesses remained without power on Friday, according to tracking service poweroutage.com. Ian has affected more than 3.3 million customers since it hit on Wednesday.
Ian first made landfall on Wednesday afternoon as it slammed into the barrier island of Cayo Costa off Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kph).
(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien and Frank McGurty; Writing by Brendan O’Brien and Frank McGurty; Editing by Mark Porter)
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FORT MYERS, Fla. (Reuters) -A resurgent Hurricane Ian barreled north on Friday toward a second landfall in South Carolina, a day after carving a path of destruction across central Florida that left rescue crews racing to reach trapped residents along the state’s Gulf Coast.
Ian, which had weakened to a tropical storm during its march across Florida, was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it churned toward South Carolina above the Atlantic Ocean, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 85 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The hurricane was forecast to hit near low-lying Charleston, South Carolina, about 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT) on Friday, bringing potentially life-threatening flooding, storm surges and winds. Hundreds of miles of coastline, stretching from Georgia to North Carolina, were under a hurricane warning.
Police in the Isle of Palms on Friday posted a video showing dark skies above rough white-cap waves near the shoreline as gusty winds blew across the beach-front community on a barrier island in South Carolina.
“We are seeing standing water along multiple roads along with debris. Please use caution if you must be on the roads,” the department said in another tweet.
The extent of damage in Florida, where Ian first came ashore on Wednesday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. mainland, became more apparent on Thursday as emergency crews began reaching stranded residents. The death toll remains uncertain.
NBC News reported that at least 10 people had died, while CNN put the toll at 17 as of late Thursday.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a Thursday evening news briefing acknowledged that some people had perished but declined to confirm a specific figure, warning that official confirmation was still needed.
“We fully expect to have mortality from this hurricane,” he said.
Some of the damage to coastal towns, including Fort Myers Beach, was “indescribable,” added DeSantis, who surveyed the affected areas from the air on Thursday.
U.S. President Joe Biden earlier on Thursday warned that Ian could prove to be the deadliest hurricane in Florida history, saying that preliminary reports suggested a “substantial” loss of life.
More than 2 million homes and businesses remained without power on Friday. That is down from the more than 3.3 million power customers affected by Ian since it hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
Officials in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina urged residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.
Charleston is particularly at risk. A city-commissioned report released in November 2020 found that about 90% of all residential properties were vulnerable to storm surge flooding. Parts of northeast South Carolina, near Charleston, could also experience up to 8 inches of rain.
Predicted storm surges were not as severe as those issued by the NHC when the storm was approaching Florida. Edisto Beach, South Carolina, a resort destination about 30 miles south of Charleston, was expected to see a 4- to 7-foot surge.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper urged residents to “take necessary precautions,” warning of possible flooding, landslides and tornadoes.
“This storm is still dangerous,” Cooper said.
HUNDREDS OF RESCUES
Ian first made landfall on Wednesday afternoon as it slammed into the barrier island of Cayo Costa off Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.
There had been more than 700 confirmed rescues in Lee and Charlotte counties, two of the hardest-hit areas, DeSantis said.
River flooding in Central Florida could reach record levels in the coming days as the torrential downpours that accompanied Ian drain into major waterways, the NHC said.
Sanibel Island, a popular vacation destination on the Gulf Coast, was hit hard, and the only bridge leading to the island was impassable, forcing rescue teams to use helicopters and boats to reach residents in need.
In Punta Gorda, directly in the hurricane’s path, trees, debris and power lines covered roadways, though many buildings withstood the storm’s onslaught better than initially feared.
Most schools will reopen on either Friday or Monday.
Brenda Siettas, 62, a paraprofessional who works with students, was in the city in 2004 when Hurricane Charley blasted much of her neighborhood away. Buildings constructed since then are more able to survive high winds, she said.
“They definitely built back much better since Charley,” she said. “Back then I stayed here for two weeks: no power, no water, no sewer.”
Biden, who spoke to DeSantis on Thursday, said he would travel to Florida when conditions allow. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell will be in Florida on Friday.
The president also approved a disaster declaration, making federal resources available to areas impacted by the storm.
Read more:
Maps-Hurricane Ian batters the Gulf Coast
Drone video shows boats washed ashore in Hurricane Ian’s wake
A Florida town rebuilt after one hurricane endures another
Hurricane hunter says Ian’s eyewall flight was ‘worst I’ve ever been on’
How hurricanes cause dangerous, destructive storm surges
(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Dan Whitcomb, Sharon Bernstein, Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien and Scott DiSavino; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Mark Porter)
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