By Matthew Romero
In the early hours of September 28th on a Wednesday morning, high winds started to spark up in Southwest Florida. Hurricane Ian was beginning its reign of disaster across the state of Florida with winds starting at 85 mph and death rates rapidly increasing by the hour. These winds reached up to 155 mph along with a horrendous flood that breached through the entire nation causing severe damage.
So far 100,000 Floridians have been struck with a power outage, beaches such as Fort Myers have been completely deteriorated, and storm surges continue to flood the coastal regions. Not only that, but the catastrophic storm seems to be headed towards South Carolina as well and has caused panic across the nation due to Ian’s horrendous storm surges. Many Floridians have already started to take action against Hurricane Ian by seeking refuge outside of the state. Over 33,000 people have already started to seek refuge in about 260 evacuation centers to escape the dangers of the powerful storm. Over 1,100 rescues have been carried out in largely populated areas of central Florida in just the past week of Ian’s arrival. Ian has been dramatically increasing in every way possible from when it first struck Florida and has left residents in anguish.
Hurricane Ian first started out as a category 1 hurricane with little to no damage and noticeable winds, but rapidly progressed into a category 4 hurricane within hours. Category 4 hurricanes guarantee winds of 133 mph and 18 foot storm surges that have devastating effects on the area affected. So far, Hurricane Ian has been progressively reaching a category 5 storm with rising flood waters reaching 16 feet and still increasing in areas such as the Peace River at Zolfo Springs. This is the least Ian has to offer as thousands of trees near the coastal areas of Florida have been brutally uprooted, debris left circulating throughout flooded areas, and multiple homes demolished into pieces. According to disaster modeler Karen Clark, the powerful hurricane has caused “well over $100 billion” in damage. When compared to other tropical storms like Hurricane Katrina that strook Florida back in August of 2005, there were almost 2,000 lives that were taken and dealt damages that cost almost $125 billion. Unfortunately, Hurricane Ian does not seem to show signs of resilience to the communities of Florida as it has already left 76 people dead according to officials. The tropical storm has been intensively difficult to track down due to its weather pattern that has gone all over the place in just the past few days and even did some intense category 3 damage to the west coast of Cuba in the country’s capital city Havana. So far, Hurricane Ian doesn’t look like it’s ready to calm down as several concerns regarding the storm have multiplied and studies have been made which speculate that it’ll be Florida’s costliest hurricane since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. It may take years for Florida to recover from Hurricane Ian and its peninsula may never be the same.
Sources
https://www.mysuncoast.com/2022/09/28/nhc-calls-ian-extremely-dangerous-wind-levels-near-category-5/