Flood Warning Issued as Heavy Rain Continues to Douse South Florida When Will It Let Up
Here's what to know about Hurricane Ian right now.
Millions of Florida residents faced a harrowing night as wind, rain and storm surge from Hurricane Ian pounded the southwestern coast and moved inland late Wednesday on a path toward Orlando, knocking out power to more than two million customers statewide.
The latest:
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A storm surge of up to 12 feet submerged cars, knocked over houses and trapped residents near where the hurricane came ashore west of Fort Myers. Some places remained too dangerous for water rescues, officials said, adding that they were taking down addresses to deploy resources once it was safe.
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Ian is among the most powerful storms to strike the United States in decades, and Gov. Ron DeSantis said it would go down as one of the strongest in Florida history. It was just shy of Category 5 status as it made landfall about 3 p.m., but had been downgraded to a Category 1 by Wednesday night. Follow its path here.
Sept. 29, 2022, 2:08 a.m. ET
Officials are warning of widespread flooding throughout Florida as Hurricane Ian lingers over the state for at least another day. Early data showed parts of southwestern Florida were already seeing record or near-record levels — by about 12:30 a.m. Thursday, Horse Creek near the city of Arcadia had swelled to 20.45 feet, setting a record. Nearby, Peace River at Zolfo Springs had risen to 23.95 feet, nearing its record of 25 feet.
Sept. 29, 2022, 12:57 a.m. ET
Half of the streets in Naples are "not passable" due to high water, and tides might further raise the water level, Collier County said on Twitter Wednesday night. "Our entire coastal area has experienced substantial storm surge," it said. "Please abide by the curfew that is currently in effect."
Sept. 29, 2022, 12:39 a.m. ET
The number of customers without power has risen to about 2.2 million early Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us as Hurricane Ian makes its way to the middle of Florida.
Sept. 29, 2022, 12:34 a.m. ET
Some areas of Fort Myers are under three to four feet of water, and the city is responding to fires, extensive flooding and life-threatening conditions, the city said in a Facebook post Wednesday night. The post asked residents to conserve water and resepct the curfew. People posted pleas on Facebook throughout the night, seeking help rescuing loved ones across the city.
Sept. 28, 2022, 11:53 p.m. ET
Jacksonville International Airport has canceled all its flights for Thursday and closed its terminal. The airport had remained open as Hurricane Ian approached and had said it would try to stay open.
Sept. 28, 2022, 11:21 p.m. ET
Forecasters cautioned that the winds remain dangerous and that the storm brings other threats with it. As much as 12 to 18 inches of rain could fall across central and northeast Florida, with the possibility of 30 inches in some spots.
Sept. 28, 2022, 11:16 p.m. ET
Hurricane Ian's winds are continuing to lose strength as the center of the storm moves over land. It now has maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said, making it a Category 1 storm.
Sept. 28, 2022, 10:42 p.m. ET
Stranded travelers and evacuees hunkered down in the lobby of the Courtyard Marriott in Fort Myers, Fla., as Hurricane Ian raged, knocking out the power.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 10:27 p.m. ET
Jim O'Brien, a 73-year-old retiree, says this will be his last hurricane in Florida. He and his wife had been contemplating a return to North Carolina after the pandemic brought a surge of growth and congestion to Cape Coral. The flooding of their house was the last straw.
"It was pretty ugly," he said. "We had high winds, high surge and more than four inches of water in the house."
Sept. 28, 2022, 10:22 p.m. ET
More than two million customers are now without power in Florida, according to PowerOutage.us.
Sept. 28, 2022, 10:08 p.m. ET
Hotel rooms are hard to come by in Naples, Fla. One hotel employee, who said he wasn't authorized to speak on the record, said people were coming from all directions looking for somewhere to stay. "There's going be thousands of people homeless tomorrow when the sun comes up," he said by phone.
Sept. 28, 2022, 9:47 p.m. ET
Sheriff Marceno said that his department was receiving lots of 911 calls and that hundreds of deputies were waiting to help as soon as the wind fell to a safe level. "The second it goes under 45 m.p.h., we get back out there," he said.
Sept. 28, 2022, 9:42 p.m. ET
Sheriff Carmine Marceno said officials in hard-hit Lee County, just north of the Everglades on Florida's Gulf Coast, were receiving word of compromised buildings and vehicles "just floating out into the ocean."
Sept. 28, 2022, 9:34 p.m. ET
Hurricane Ian has dropped down to Category 2 as it moves over the Florida peninsula, but forecasters are warning that the massive storm will likely dump heavy rain on inland communities, causing widespread flooding.
Sept. 28, 2022, 8:50 p.m. ET
The Lee County government advised residents to stay put as the storm continues to sweep across the state. "We are beginning to get a sense that our community has been, in some respects, decimated," Roger Desjarlais, the county manager, said during an evening news briefing on Wednesday.
Sept. 28, 2022, 8:14 p.m. ET
Reporting from Tampa, Fla.
Wind damaged the roof of the HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital in Port Charlotte, Fla., a coastal town about 100 miles south of Tampa. The hospital said that the resulting water damage forced patients to be moved to lower floors, but that they were safe, and medical staff were continuing to provide care.
Sept. 28, 2022, 8:11 p.m. ET
Hurricane Ian was downgraded to Category 3 after making landfall in southwestern Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center. By 8 p.m. Wednesday, the storm was about 95 miles southwest of Orlando, with maximum sustained winds of 115 m.p.h.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 8:00 p.m. ET
Jennifer Reed , Charles Ballaro and
Before Hurricane Ian, Florida's southwest coast was a place to escape the chaos.
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Jessica Cosden's family was huddled together at home as roofs rattled, trees crashed down and surging waters filled the 400 miles of canals lacing their city.
Then everything went dark.
"We just lost power," Ms. Cosden said. "My 3-year-old son is freaking out."
As Hurricane Ian charged ashore along Florida's southwest coast on Wednesday, it turned a laid-back stretch of suburban shoreline known for tiki bars, golf-course retirement communities and stone-crab fishing havens into a strand of destruction and chaos.
With no electricity, the Cosden family waited together into the night on Wednesday in a single candlelit room in their house in Cape Coral, a fast-growing city of 205,000 near Fort Myers. Hannah, 12, felt OK but worried about her family getting hurt. Jacob, 10 and living through his first real hurricane, stood in a corner and closed his eyes.
"I'm super shaken up," Jacob said. "I just want this to be over. I'd rather be at school."
Cities along Florida's Southwest Coast, pounded by storm surge and 150 mile-per-hour wind gusts from Ian, can feel like sleepier cousins to the high-rise multicultural pulsations of Miami. The region skews older, whiter and more conservative than Florida's denser Atlantic coast. Places like Cape Coral have long drawn Midwesterners hunting for an affordable slice of Florida shoreline.
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But on Wednesday, much of that had been shattered. There were reports of roofs ripped off homes in Cape Coral. In the wealthy coastal enclave of Naples, a resident said he had three feet of water in his home.
In Everglades City, a mecca for stone-crab fishing, some residents who had barely finished rebuilding after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in 2017 had lost everything once more, said Holly Dudley, whose family runs a crabbing business. Ms. Dudley said streets were flooding, cars were floating and fishermen were anxious about whether their boats had survived.
"I know God has a plan," Ms. Dudley said. "We're thick-skinned and he makes us resilient. But at some point, when will it end?"
In Cape Coral, Hurricane Ian's sprawling fury reminded some longtime residents of Hurricane Donna, which pummeled the city in 1960 when it was barely a developer's dream on a map, marketed as a Waterfront Wonderland where hundreds of miles of canals had been carved into the land.
"There was nobody here," said Gloria Raso Tate, a city councilwoman whose family arrived in 1960, right in the middle of Hurricane Donna.
On Wednesday, she had fled her home along the swelling Caloosahatchee River, which runs nearby, in the hopes of finding safety farther inland at her sister's house in a different neighborhood of Cape Coral. Ms. Raso Tate said she worried her house might not survive the storm.
"We're in the middle of it," she said.
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The hurricane posed a menacing test of whether a fast-growing city could handle one of the worst storms to strike the coast in decades.
"We're swamped with people," Ms. Raso Tate said. "That's the issue right now. Most of our residents are new and have never had to go through a hurricane. There's been some panic."
Late Wednesday, city officials said there had been no reports of injuries or deaths in Cape Coral, but the toll of the storm was still unclear. Police officers, firefighters and medics were not responding to 911 calls on Wednesday until the winds eased off.
Some city officials said they believed that as many as half of the city's 205,000 residents may have decided to stay in their homes, despite mandatory evacuation orders for much of the city that had been issued on Tuesday. The brunt of the storm was initially expected to hit farther north, in Tampa.
Shelters that could hold 40,000 people were only about one-tenth full, and some residents who stayed home had been calling to ask about shelters only after it was too dangerous to venture onto the roads, city officials said.
"I think a lot of people just hunkered down," said Melissa Mickey, a spokeswoman for Cape Coral. "That's a concern."
As a storm surge forecast to reach 12 feet or more washed into nearby Fort Myers, churning whitecaps in people's front yards, residents and city officials in Cape Coral were nervously watching the levels of the Caloosahatchee River and 400 miles of freshwater and saltwater canals across the city.
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The canals threaded through Cape Coral had been dug with no permits and little regard for the environment, city officials said, but they were crossing their fingers that the web of waterways normally used for boating and fishing might act as a shock absorber for the storm surge and help drain some of the rain and flooding.
Officials in Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Cape Coral, had been opening up low dams to drain waterways ahead of the storm.
Real estate values in the Fort Myers area, where a majority of residents are white, peaked and then crashed in the 2008 recession, but the region has boomed in recent years.
The area's Latino residents have been growing in numbers, and big new corporate arrivals like Hertz and a medical-device manufacturer have revved up an economy that is still powered by tourism and housing.
"When I was growing up it was all retired people," said Ms. Cosden, who is on the Cape Coral City Council. "The population has quadrupled since I was born. It's a lot more families, middle and working class."
In Charlotte Harbor, about 30 miles north, Jeannie Croke, 50, had decided to ride out the storm at her home along a canal, though it was a decision she made when Hurricane Ian was still expected to strike the Tampa Bay area. Some of her neighbors changed their minds and fled for safer ground as the storm barreled toward them earlier on Wednesday.
"We just saw two of them in the past hour decide to leave. We may be one of the few remaining," Ms. Croke said. "We've tied down the boat and did everything we could do. Pray for us."
Jennifer Reed reported from Fort Myers, Fla., Charles Ballaro from Lehigh Acres, Fla., and Jack Healy from Phoenix. Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting from New York.
Sept. 28, 2022, 7:51 p.m. ET
In the hours after Ian came ashore, a weather station near Fort Myers, Fla., recorded a water level seven feet higher than the average height of the highest daily tides, according to the National Hurricane Center. High winds continue to sweep across southwestern Florida, with a private weather station near Port Charlotte on the southwestern coast reporting 115 mile-per-hour sustained winds and 132 m.p.h. gusts.
Sept. 28, 2022, 7:45 p.m. ET
At one mobile home park, warnings blare but residents aren't listening.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — A red fire truck rolled through the Silver Star Manufactured Home Community on Wednesday afternoon, an American flag whipping in the wind off the back bumper and a recording blaring from a loudspeaker.
Evacuation of mobile homes is recommended, the recording said. And, more ominously: "During the storm we will not be able to help you."
At the Silver Star, a lovely little neighborhood where fresh paint coats the corrugated tin walls and the mobile homes feature elaborate porches and carports, few residents seemed interested in heeding that warning.
"In central Florida, there's a lot of land between the water, and when it comes on land, it usually loses strength," Don Smith, 83, a retired wastewater-industry worker, said, referring to big storms. "So I think we're pretty well situated."
This kind of thinking is worrying public safety officials across inland Florida. Even though Hurricane Ian is expected to have lost strength by the time it reaches Orlando in the coming hours, rain will continue to pelt the region and winds could still gust to 95 miles per hour. Water was already pooling in the streets, but many residents didn't mind.
"The administration is constantly checking on the roofs," said Alvaro Ivan Martinez, 60, a construction worker from Colombia, who added that the roof on his home had been replaced two years ago.
By 1:45 p.m., the wind had picked up, bullying the branches of the oak trees. A two-man crew installed metal storm shutters on the rental office. The clubhouse, with its tiny blue pool, had a "closed" sign out front.
Sept. 28, 2022, 7:03 p.m. ET
Firefighters in Naples, Fla., waded through waist-high water to unload their fire truck after the garage at the station was flooded.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 6:58 p.m. ET
Residents arrive at shelters, not knowing whether they will have homes to return to.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — A grim-faced family of five trudged through a light but steady rain Wednesday afternoon, their belongings confined to a small train of pushcarts and strollers, toward their lodging for the night — and possibly longer: the gymnasium at Dr. Phillips High School.
The mother, who gave her name only as Liz, said they were homeless and had been bouncing among hotels and motels for weeks. On Tuesday, they camped out by a gas station. Her children, ages 3, 5 and 7, clutched spiral lollipops.
"We don't have any family," Liz said. "It's hard."
The scene at Dr. Phillips, one of several shelters across Orange County, typified the housing crisis that Hurricane Ian has wrought across the state. Many residents came not because they had no home, but because they worried their homes would be destroyed as Ian continued to ravage Florida.
Adamarys Rosario, 24, and her partner, Steven Rivera, 23, live in a trailer a few miles from the school. They endured the nightmare of Hurricane Maria in 2017, when they lived in Puerto Rico, and this time they knew it wasn't safe to stay in their adopted Florida home.
So, on Wednesday night, they would sleep on cots on a gymnasium floor.
"We are worried about what's going to happen," Ms. Rosario said in Spanish.
"Worried that our home is going to be destroyed," Mr. Rivera added.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:57 p.m. ET
Reporting from Orlando, Fla.
Floodwater poured into the studio of the Fort Myers CBS affiliate, WINK-TV, knocking the station's coverage off the air about 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:43 p.m. ET
Emergency authorities warned residents against using their own boats and cars to help first responders with rescues, noting that many hurricane deaths happen as civilians venture into deep water electrified by downed power lines.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:33 p.m. ET
Estimates vary widely of economic damage from the storm.
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Insurance companies and analysts said it was far too early to estimate the property damage from the storm, but they offered a sense of what they were expecting.
Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, said that many insurance modelers estimate that the damage could end up anywhere from $20 billion to $40 billion — numbers that may shift depending on the storm's path and strength.
A spokesman for Citizens Property Insurance, a state-backed nonprofit insurance company that represents about 13 percent of Florida's property insurance market, said that the organization expected to receive about 225,000 claims. The estimate, he added, will change when Citizens gets more information after the storm.
Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm that destroyed tens of thousands of homes in South Florida in 1992, caused an estimated $15.5 billion in total insured losses and resulted in the insolvency of 11 insurance companies, Ms. Worters said.
"Florida's vulnerability to hurricanes had been seriously underestimated," she said.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:31 p.m. ET
Hurricane Ian is damaging cities across southwestern Florida. Rising waters have caused severe flooding in many parts of the region.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 6:26 p.m. ET
In Florida's Lee County, on the Gulf Coast, Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach have seen "tremendous damage," county manager Roger Desjarlais said. Public works crews have not been able to begin clearing debris because conditions are still too dangerous. A curfew went into effect at 6 p.m.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:24 p.m. ET
The eye of the hurricane will start to diminish, but it will still "pack a formidable punch as it moves across the state of Florida," said Jamie Rhome, the acting director of the National Hurricane Center. He warned residents not to drive on Thursday. High winds are also expected inland over South Carolina, potentially as far west as Columbia.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:20 p.m. ET
Gov. Ron DeSantis warns Florida residents inland to brace for impact. "We do anticipate some major, major flooding events in northeast Florida," he says, citing areas such as Clay County, which are under mandatory evacuation orders.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:18 p.m. ET
The Florida governor says Hurricane Ian will likely be one of the most catastrophic storms ever to hit the state. "At a minimum, it's going to be a very strong Category 4 that's going to rank as one of the top five hurricanes to ever hit the Florida peninsula," he says.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:00 p.m. ET
Reporting from Tampa, Fla.
Collier County, home to Naples, which experienced significant storm surge, has instituted a mandatory curfew from 10 p.m. Wednesday until 6 a.m. Thursday.
Sept. 28, 2022, 6:00 p.m. ET
Along with first responders and other help from across the United States, the Florida governor reports that the Cajun Navy is on the way from Louisiana. He adds that "these are really some battle hardened folks."
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Sept. 28, 2022, 5:50 p.m. ET
Gov. Desantis said Hurricane Ian is affecting places hundreds of miles from where the storm came ashore. "This is a big one, and I think we all know there's going to be major, major impacts," he said.
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:48 p.m. ET
Strong winds from Hurricane Ian's approach appeared to down a power line in Naples, Fla., causing it to spark and catch fire.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 5:46 p.m. ET
Hurricane Ian is "battering" southwest Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference, pushing a storm surge as high as 12 feet in some areas.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 5:31 p.m. ET
Reporting from Jacksonville, Fla.
The interstate highways in Florida offer an ominous sign of the punishing cleanup likely coming: A cavalcade of bucket trucks from utility companies, flatbeds hauling equipment and military convoys and trailers stamped with "Emergency Response Unit" on the side.
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:29 p.m. ET
Reporting from Orlando, Fla.
The authorities in Lee County, Fla., which includes Cape Coral and Fort Myers, are using their emergency alert system to warn residents by phone that if water starts coming into their homes they should get to the highest spot they can inside. "Responders begin rescues after the storm passes," the message said. "This could last all night."
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:24 p.m. ET
As Hurricane Ian hits, DeSantis pauses his political bomb-throwing.
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WASHINGTON — As a powerful hurricane hammers Florida's Gulf Coast, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is confronting a vastly different calculus in his dealings with President Biden and the federal government.
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican widely seen as holding White House ambitions, is one of his party's foremost political provocateurs, often appearing on national television to rail against an administration in Washington he denounces as overbearing. As recently as February, Mr. DeSantis dismissed Mr. Biden as someone who "hates Florida," saying baselessly that he "stiffs" storm victims of relief for political reasons.
But now, as Hurricane Ian threatens to inflict significant damage across Florida, Mr. DeSantis must rely on assistance from the same federal government whose public health guidance he has ridiculed during the pandemic. Beyond that, he must work with the very president he has castigated and may soon run to replace.
"We all need to work together, regardless of party lines," Mr. DeSantis said on Fox News on Tuesday night, adding that he was "thankful" for the Biden administration's assistance. "The administration wants to help," he said. "They realize this is a really significant storm."
At a briefing early Wednesday evening, Mr. DeSantis noted that he had spoken with the president the day before. "He said all hands on deck, that he wants to be helpful," Mr. DeSantis said. "He said whatever you need, ask us. He was inviting us to request support." Earlier, he praised help Florida had received from several federal agencies.
The disaster-driven pause in partisanship is a notable shift for Mr. DeSantis, a politician who came to power during a highly polarized social media era and won his 2018 primary thanks to an endorsement from Donald J. Trump that he earned after defending Mr. Trump scores of times on Fox News.
The governor's tenure has been characterized by a series of fights appealing to the Trump-aligned Republican base, particularly on social issues and the pandemic response. One question that immediately arose as the storm bore down on Florida was for how long Mr. DeSantis, who is seeking re-election in November against Representative Charlie Crist, a Democratic former governor, would put politics aside.
Mr. Biden, in contrast to Mr. DeSantis, has for decades sold himself as an across-the-aisle deal maker.
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On Wednesday morning, the president made a point to announce that he had been in touch with Mr. DeSantis.
"My team has been in constant contact with him from the very beginning," he said at a White House conference on hunger.
Mr. Biden, who also spoke with several Florida mayors, said that he had told Mr. DeSantis that the federal government was "alert and in action" and that he had approved every request from Florida for federal help.
"I made it clear to the governor and the mayors that the federal government is ready to help in every single way possible," Mr. Biden said.
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, also emphasized the temporary unity.
"There's no politics in this, when we talk about extreme weather," she said. "This is about the people of Florida, this is about two people who wanted to have a conversation on how we can be partners to the governor and his constituents and make sure that we are delivering for the people of Florida."
Ms. Jean-Pierre declined to say how long Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis spoke for on Tuesday.
Hurricane Ian is the first major storm to strike Florida since Mr. DeSantis took office in early 2019. He is operating with a storm playbook long honed by governors of Florida, where the state's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was widely criticized as too slow and ineffective.
When he ran for president in 2016, Jeb Bush, a two-term governor, frequently highlighted Florida's hurricane preparedness and rebuilding efforts under his leadership. Mr. DeSantis's immediate predecessor, Rick Scott, burnished a somewhat awkward public persona while shepherding Florida through a series of hurricanes during his tenure.
Mr. DeSantis is unlikely to follow the path of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose warm greeting for President Barack Obama during an October 2012 visit to inspect damage from Hurricane Sandy drew scorn from fellow Republicans during his subsequent presidential campaign.
Mr. Christie said in an interview on Wednesday that, 10 years later, "I wouldn't change a thing." He went on, "To me it always was that the job that I've been elected to do was the most important thing and the politics at the time was secondary."
He added: "I didn't think there was anything else to it at all. That's a decision that Governor DeSantis is going to have to make."
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At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Mr. DeSantis said Mr. Biden "hates Florida" and "stiffs" storm victims because of politics. (There is no evidence that Mr. Biden has withheld federal emergency relief for political purposes, though Mr. Trump often threatened to use a similar tactic when he was in the White House.)
Mr. DeSantis also spent months assailing federal public health guidance about the pandemic. In August, he denigrated Dr. Anthony S. Fauci days after the doctor announced that he would retire as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac," Mr. DeSantis said at a rally in Orlando.
And two weeks ago, Mr. DeSantis flew two planes filled with undocumented Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Mass., in an attempt to highlight his opposition to Mr. Biden's immigration policy.
"The biggest stunt was Biden coming in as president and reversing Trump's policies," Mr. DeSantis told reporters in Florida days later. He also suggested that the next plane of immigrants might land in Delaware, near the president's weekend home.
Democrats were infuriated. Mr. Biden said Mr. DeSantis was "playing politics with human beings, using them as props," adding: "What they're doing is simply wrong. It's un-American. It's reckless." Asked days later what his response was to Mr. DeSantis's threat to send the next plane to Delaware, Mr. Biden replied: "He should come visit. We have a beautiful shoreline."
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:20 p.m. ET
What to do if your travel plans have been affected by Hurricane Ian.
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Throughout Florida, many airports have closed and some hotels have begun preparing to accept evacuees instead of tourists. As of Wednesday afternoon, Hurricane Ian had already contributed to the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights, most within Florida, according to Kathleen Bangs, a spokeswoman for FlightAware, a flight-tracking company.
The effects on air travel, in Florida and beyond, are likely to continue through the weekend. Here's what to know if your travel plans are affected by Hurricane Ian.
Your flight was canceled because of the storm. What now?
Extreme weather events are outside airlines' control, so you cannot automatically expect a full refund if your flight is canceled or significantly delayed. But some airlines, including American, Frontier and JetBlue, are offering full refunds anyway.
Other airlines are offering credit to those who opt not to rebook, or waiving change fees for those who do — but read the details carefully because there are many restrictions.
Here are what some major airlines are doing:
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American: Travelers affected by Hurricane Ian can obtain a full refund for canceled flights or rebook without a change fee, provided travel is rescheduled by Oct. 8 and completed within one year of the original ticket, according to an airline spokeswoman.
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Delta: Travelers flying from, to or through affected Florida airports can avoid change fees so long as they complete travel within a year of the original ticket, according to Delta's website. Fare differences will only be waived for flights rebooked by Oct. 3. Travelers who do not rebook can obtain a credit.
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Frontier: Frontier is among the hardest-hit airlines, canceling a larger percentage of flights Wednesday than any other carrier. Customers can rebook for free, even if they change departure and arrival cities, as long as travel occurs by Oct. 10. Those who do not rebook canceled flights can obtain a full refund.
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JetBlue: Travelers going to, from or through affected cities in Florida can rebook for free as long as all rescheduled travel occurs by Oct. 6. Travelers with canceled flights may request a full refund.
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Southwest: Travelers scheduled to fly out of, into, or through Tampa, Orlando and nine other airports in Florida can rebook to other airports within Florida without a fee, according to the company's site. Travelers flying in or out of Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., can also rebook for a later date without a charge. Travel must occur within 14 days of the originally scheduled flight. Full refunds will be offered for canceled flights.
Several airlines are also making accommodations for dogs and cats. Southwest is waiving the $95 pet fare for customers traveling to or from affected cities, and American is lifting the limit on the number of carry-on pets allowed.
What happens to your hotel reservation?
If you are planning to travel to Florida in the coming days, you should check to see if your hotel is still accepting guests. Travelers planning to check in at Disney Resort Hotels on Thursday, for example, were asked to wait until Friday.
If you are planning to cancel your trip you'll need to talk to your hotel about specifics. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is waiving cancellation fees for any hotels in mandatory evacuation zones, a spokesman said in a statement.
Hilton customers who have not paid before check-in can cancel with a refund. Those who paid in advance may be able to obtain a full refund if their plans were affected by Hurricane Ian, according to a spokeswoman.
What about Airbnb and VRBO?
Both companies appear to be leaving that decision to the host. If your host cancels first, then you should get a refund or credit.
VRBO and Airbnb are both trying to facilitate that by waiving host penalties associated with cancellation in areas affected by the storm, according to company representatives.
It gets more complicated if your host doesn't cancel.
Airbnb offers refunds for a number of "events beyond your control," including natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions. But tropical hurricanes and storms affecting Florida between June and November are not covered because the company considers them foreseeable.
VRBO has a similar policy. "Natural disasters, such as hurricanes or wildfires, do not override the cancellation policy set by the host and agreed to by the guest when they book," a spokeswoman said.
One tip: Moving your date to something in the distant future can often buy you time to figure out your plans without incurring a fee.
Cruise line cancellations are rare.
Several cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, said they had to reroute their ships to avoid the storm, forcing some passengers to spend an extra night at sea. Ships can generally navigate around severe weather, making cancellations rare, said Anne Madison, a spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association.
MSC Cruises: The company rerouted two of its ships, the MSC Seashore and the MSC Divina, farther east and promised refunds to passengers who booked excursions at their original destinations.
Norwegian Cruise Line: An eight-day voyage that departed Miami on Sunday was shifted from the Western Caribbean to the Eastern Caribbean, the company said. The cruise line also said it canceled a 10-day Caribbean voyage that was scheduled to depart on Thursday from Orlando.
What happens to Disney World tickets?
The theme park will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday. Disney said tickets purchased for this week could be used through Sept. 30, 2023, and that it was working with any guests who required refunds.
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:12 p.m. ET
The National Hurricane Center issued a storm surge watch in South Carolina for an area just north of Charleston to the Little River Inlet, on the coastal border with North Carolina. In North Carolina, a tropical storm warning was extended to Surf City, north of Wilmington, and a tropical storm watch was in effect from Surf City to Cape Lookout.
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:10 p.m. ET
Reporting from Houston
About 11 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut down because of safety concerns. That would have been big a decade ago, but these days, oil from the Gulf represents only 15 percent of total U.S. production. The disruption should not have much impact.
Sept. 28, 2022, 5:06 p.m. ET
Video from the satellite library at Colorado State University shows the moment Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida.
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Sept. 28, 2022, 5:03 p.m. ET
Hurricane Ian just made a second landfall, this time on the Florida mainland near the southwestern city of Punta Gorda. Ian had maximum sustained winds estimated at 145 m.p.h., according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm first hit Florida at Cayo Costa, a barrier island west of Fort Myers.
Sept. 28, 2022, 4:53 p.m. ET
In Key West, the storm has passed, but the dangers remain.
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KEY WEST, Fla. — Eko Kereselidze looked out at the huge stretch of water nipping at her front door on Wednesday and wondered what to do next. Hurricane Ian had flooded her street in Key West just to her front step, and the authorities were predicting even worse storm surges through Friday during high tides.
She contemplated going to a nearby hotel, even if just to crash in the lobby or upper floors.
"I don't know what we are going to do," Ms. Kereselidze said. "It was so bad. It was so scary, because I can't swim."
In Monroe County, Florida's southernmost county, which includes the Keys, officials were warning people that the danger had not subsided, even though the storm had already passed through.
At least 6.6 inches of rain had fallen in the county, according to Kirsten Livengood, a spokeswoman for the county, where the waters rose two feet higher than normal.
Ms. Kereselidze and a friend, Dea Tinikashvili, had prepared for the storm as best they could, storing important documents in vacuum-sealed plastic and propping large appliances up off the ground in their carport. The washer was up on bricks, and the clothes dryer on a chair. All around them: water.
At one point during the storm, they found a man standing in the pelting rain, holding bags of his belongings. His home had flooded and he had fled on foot. They took the stranger in.
Elizabeth Cifuentes, a housekeeper, and her roommate, Vinicio Ochoa, who works in landscaping, were trapped inside their nearby apartment, waiting for the water to recede.
"How did I spend the night? With fear!" Ms. Cifuentes said. "The water was up to here," she added, pointing to the front step.
Flooding is not uncommon in Key West, but neither Ms. Cifuentes nor Mr. Ochoa said they could recall things ever getting this bad. For the last big storm in the area, Hurricane Irma in 2017, they fled to Orlando.
Mr. Ochoa said everyone was calling him on Wednesday to come work and help clean up the masses of broken tree branches that were now peppering the city. His car started up, despite having spent the night in standing water, but it was still surrounded by water and he was unable to move it.
"I think it's still too windy out here to work," he said. "What If I get hit in the head with a flying branch?"
Sept. 28, 2022, 4:26 p.m. ET
Ian joins a string of 'rapid intensification' hurricanes.
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A rapid intensification had shifted Hurricane Ian close to Category 5 by midday on Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds reaching 155 miles per hour. It had been a Category 3 storm the previous evening.
Meteorologists define rapid intensification as an increase of 30 knots, or 35 m.p.h., in a hurricane's maximum sustained winds over a 24-hour period. Christopher Slocum, a physical scientist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said that was definitely the case with Ian.
Forecasters had predicted that the storm might undergo rapid intensification after observing conditions that drive the process: a deep layer of very warm water to fuel the storm and very little wind shear, a situation where wind sharply changes speed or direction. Strong wind shear can inhibit the strengthening of hurricanes.
As the climate warms Earth's oceans, more storms are undergoing rapid intensification. The last decade has provided a number of examples, among them Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017, Hurricanes Michael and Florence in 2018 and Hurricane Ida in 2021.
Rapidly strengthening storms can present a challenge for public safety officials, who have limited time to issue critical guidance on when or if people should evacuate their homes and what other measures to take.
Sept. 28, 2022, 4:07 p.m. ET
Heavy rain could cause toxic waste spills at industrial sites in Ian's path.
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Heavy rainfall and high winds from Hurricane Ian could cause some of Florida's industrial sites to spill dangerous contaminants into local waterways, environmentalists warned on Wednesday.
Two giant wastewater ponds at phosphate mines east of Tampa were of the greatest concern.
A pond at the Mosaic-New Wales mine has just 9.4 inches of water capacity, according to a filing submitted this month to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Jackie Barron, a spokeswoman for the company, said "robust storm preparedness plans" were in place.
One of the pools at another site, Piney Point, which is in the process of being shut down, has 24 inches of storage capacity, according to the department.
Both mines are in an area known as Bone Valley, where much of the nation's phosphate, a key component of fertilizers, is produced. Hurricane Ian is expected to pass directly over the area, bringing up to two feet of rain.
If the sites receive more rain than they can handle, experts say, wastewater could spill out into major waterways, including Tampa Bay, as well as Florida's aquifer, which supplies drinking water throughout the region.
Pools at the sites can hold hundreds of millions, and, in some cases, billions of gallons of wastewater containing radon, uranium, radium and other carcinogens, said Ragan Whitlock, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. Spills can also contribute to algal blooms.
Even before the hurricane, some pools have been plagued by structural problems. Last year, Piney Point released 215 million gallons of wastewater into local waterways. This summer, the Mosaic-New Wales mine reported a tear in a pond liner that risks creating a sinkhole.
In addition to the phosphate mines, there are also coal ash ponds and dozens of active superfund sites in the direct path of the hurricane.
Sept. 28, 2022, 3:46 p.m. ET
Left in the dark after Hurricane Ian, Cuba begins restoring power.
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HAVANA —State employees began restoring electricity in parts of Cuba on Wednesday after the nation's power grid was knocked out by Hurricane Ian, which continued to buffet the island's north shore with strong winds and some flooding as it lashed Florida's coast.
The storm's damage was particularly severe in Pinar del Rio province, home to the tobacco farms that supply Cuba's famous cigar industry, with the hurricane damaging more than 5,000 farms there, according to state media.
Top government officials from Havana visited the province, which also lost telephone service. They promised to restore power to schools and hospitals and begin rebuilding.
The storm was still causing strong winds that created minor tidal waves in Havana and in other northern areas, leading to "moderate coastal flooding," according to state media, citing the nation's Institute of Meteorology. More than 16,200 people have been evacuated because of the storm.
By Wednesday, the worst of the hurricane appeared to be over, and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero of Cuba declared that the country would begin recovery efforts.
"In the shortest time possible, we will move forward," Mr. Marrero tweeted on Wednesday morning.
Hurricane Ian slammed into the western part of the Caribbean island on Tuesday as a powerful Category 3 storm, bringing winds of up to 125 miles per hour, dumping several inches of rain and causing deadly flooding. The two deaths occurred on Tuesday in Pinar del Rio.
The biggest damage so far has been to Cuba's power grid, telecommunications network and its agricultural sector, according to state media.
"Aid is already pouring in from all over the country," President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said in remarks reported by state media. "Rest assured that we will recover."
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Díaz-Canel toured the damage in Havana, the capital, and attended a meeting of the province's Defense Council.
The storm knocked down more than 1,000 trees and caused a complete collapse of the country's electrical system, according to state media.
Cuba's electric grid is divided into three sections, and power was slowly coming back on in the eastern part of the country, where the hurricane had done little to no damage, the national electricity company, Unión Eléctrica, and state media said in a series of tweets.
Government officials hope to start generating enough power in the east and center to connect all three sections.
It remained to be seen whether the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian would intensify a steady surge of migrants fleeing Cuba and headed toward the United States. Nearly 200,000 Cubans have been intercepted by American border officials so far this year, the largest migration from the island in recorded history, according to federal officials in Washington.
In interviews, many migrants have said they are fleeing dire economic and social conditions on the island, where food is scarce and the country's once-storied medical system is under strain. Others have fled ramped-up government repression of political dissidents, with activists arrested or intimidated after a wave of anti-establishment protests last year.
Camila Acosta reported from Havana, and Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City.
Sept. 28, 2022, 3:33 p.m. ET
Category 5 hurricanes are rare in the United States.
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Hurricane Ian came ashore Wednesday as one of the most powerful storms to menace the United States in decades, just short of the rarest — and strongest — class of hurricane, a Category 5.
A storm reaches that classification on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale when its winds exceed 157 miles per hour. Ian's winds appeared to top out at 155 m.p.h., and had weakened slightly before making landfall at 3:05 p.m., according to the National Hurricane Center.
In the last three decades, only two Category 5 storms have made landfall in the United States: Hurricane Michael four years ago, and Hurricane Andrew 30 years ago, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Both hit Florida.
Michael, one of the most powerful storms to make landfall on the continental United States, slammed Florida's Panhandle region in October 2018. It packed maximum sustained winds of 161 miles per hour and left a 200-mile trail of destruction. Its winds were so strong that the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee issued its first Extreme Wind Warning, a rare act among Weather Service offices.
Michael was blamed for the deaths of 16 people, and it caused about $25 billion in damage in the United States, according to a report from the National Hurricane Center.
Andrew packed 165 m.p.h. winds as it hit South Florida in August 1992 and later struck Louisiana as a Category 3 storm. At the time, it was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, causing about $27 billion in damage, or about $56 billion in 2022 dollars. Andrew was blamed for 61 deaths, and destroyed more than 125,000 homes. At least 160,000 people were left homeless in Dade County, Fla.
After Andrew thumped south Miami-Dade County, the region improved its approach to hurricane preparation. South Florida approved a building code intended to help structures better withstand high winds, and new laws required supermarkets and hospitals to be equipped with generators so they could reopen quickly after a storm. Andrew also gave rise to the modern-day federal, state and local emergency response system.
Wind speed does not directly correlate with devastation: Hurricane Katrina weakened significantly from its peak Category 5 intensity by the time it made landfall in the United States, causing catastrophic flooding in New Orleans in 2005.
Sept. 28, 2022, 3:07 p.m. ET
What does Hurricane Ian mean for Florida's wildlife?
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Florida's native wildlife is well adapted to hurricanes, and species have all kinds of strategies for staying safe or rebounding quickly. For example, even though sea turtle nesting season overlaps with hurricane season and some eggs may be destroyed, many of the young have already hatched and crawled out to sea by the time the season really ramps up. Lots of wildlife in the state can even benefit from new habitat created by flooding and downed trees.
But increasingly, that natural resilience is compromised by two human-created problems.
First, many species are suffering declines driven by habitat loss and other factors. These depleted populations may be squeezed into limited parcels of land, making it much more difficult for them to bounce back after a storm.
Second, climate change is supercharging some hurricanes. Scientists are still learning what this means for wildlife. Bigger storms can wipe out important habitat on land and at sea.
One of Florida's most beloved species, the manatee, can get trapped inland when floodwaters recede. As Ian progresses, experts are poised to rescue the animals when they can do so safely. They are also asking people to report stranded, injured or dead manatees to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Sept. 28, 2022, 2:43 p.m. ET
Flying into the eye of Ian: An experienced hurricane hunter takes a wild ride.
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TAMPA, Fla. — Nick Underwood has flown into the eye of a hurricane 76 times over the past six years as an aerospace engineer for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. His roughest flight so far? Early Wednesday, to the heart of Hurricane Ian.
"I've never seen so much lightning," he said in a phone interview after landing in Houston.
A veteran of 22 storms, Mr. Underwood described an exceptionally turbulent experience punching through Ian's thick eye wall. Even inside the eye, which is usually the calmest part of the storm, he and the flight crew, technicians and scientists on the team were continually buffeted inside a Lockheed WP-3D Orion aircraft known as Kermit.
"We're kind of used to the up-and-down, roller coaster feeling that you get, but in this case, there was just a lot of lateral movement," he said. "It was a lot more unnerving."
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NOAA's hurricane hunters help confirm a storm's location and strength, as do Air Force Reserve reconnaissance flights. But the NOAA planes also serve as flying research labs that launch probes and collect real-time scientific data crucial to understanding — and better forecasting — hurricanes. During Wednesday's flight, Mr. Underwood's team launched an experimental research drone that NOAA has been testing.
"The basic idea is that it can go to the places in the storm that we can't," Mr. Underwood said, adding that it will collect "the lifesaving data that we're really up there for."
The hurricane hunters are based in Lakeland, Fla., but flew the Ian mission from Houston so that the aircraft could safely depart and return. The team's families mostly live in central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, said Mr. Underwood, who calls St. Petersburg home.
"Your thoughts are always with the folks who are on the ground," he said. "There is that little extra level of concern when it's your friends."
Correction :
Sept. 28, 2022
An earlier version of this story misstated the number of storms Nick Underwood has flown into over the past six years. It is 22 storms, not 76.
Sept. 28, 2022, 1:48 p.m. ET
A family in the storm's path flees to the other side of Florida.
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HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The threat of Hurricane Ian and memories of storms past sent Teresa Iglesias and her son, Robert Rodriguez, racing across the state, from their house in Cape Coral, on the western coast, to South Florida.
With many others, Ms. Iglesias and Mr. Rodriguez joined a slow crawl east across I-75 to escape the worst of the massive storm. They checked into a hotel in Hollywood, Fla., on Tuesday, then started making a few last-minute grocery purchases today.
While the Atlantic coast of South Florida is not in the direct path of the hurricane, it is expected to experience tropical force winds and flooding. Already, tornadoes were reported overnight in Broward County, Fla., overturning small planes, stripping siding from homes and uprooting trees.
Ms. Iglesias — who experienced Hurricanes Andrew, Irma and Wilma — said they are staying at a small hotel on the beach but hoped to move further inland because, "you never know what can happen."
"I call it the psychology of terror. When you have been through these, there are some things you know to do," she said gesturing toward a shopping cart filled with dry foods such as crackers, chips and noodles. "At some point, we knew we needed to leave."
Sept. 28, 2022, 1:43 p.m. ET
Amid a dire forecast in Central Florida, some residents commit to staying put.
THE VILLAGES, Fla. — As Hurricane Ian clobbered the west coast of Florida, forecasters said the central part of the state could see potentially disastrous amounts of rain over the next two days.
"Depending on which forecasts you look at, we can expect anywhere from 15 to 26 inches of rain, which is catastrophic," said David Casto, the director of emergency management for Sumter County.
In the most well-known part of Sumter County, The Villages, a giant and ever-booming retirement community northwest of Orlando that spreads across 32 square miles, people began stocking up amid a steady drizzle. It was too late for them to leave at this point, but those coming out of a Publix market with groceries said they had not especially considered it, particularly those who lived through Hurricane Irma five years ago.
"Been there, done that, got the hat, lost the T-shirt," said Don Hart, 75, whose wife was making beef barley soup at home while he picked up supplies.
Mr. Casto said that the areas in Sumter County most at risk are outside The Villages in communities that lie along the already swollen Withlacoochee River and beside Lake Panasoffkee. The people who live in those homes have been warned that they might want to consider leaving.
"The Villages has some low spots," Mr. Casto said, "but the good news is The Villages is designed for these types of events."
Mr. Casto added that water in the ponds and in the hazards of golf courses is moved around via "a complex series of drainage systems."
But homes in the oldest part of the community — what several residents of The Villages referred to as the "historic section" because the homes there date to the 1970s — could be vulnerable. Some of these homes took on water in 2017 during Hurricane Irma.
Plenty of residents who had not gone through Irma had little idea of what to expect.
"We get two to three hundred homes built a month," Mr. Casto said. "That's how many new people have come into The Villages for the last several years. And in the last five years since Irma, we've had literally thousands of people that moved here that don't have the experience of maybe a tropical system."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/09/28/us/hurricane-ian-florida
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