Hurricane Ian veers north to South Carolina after pummelling Florida
CBC
A resurgent Hurricane Ian barrelled 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, regained Category 1 hurricane strength on Thursday afternoon while churning toward South Carolina above the Atlantic Ocean, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 120 km/h, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The hurricane was forecast to hit near low-lying Charleston, S.C., about 2 p.m. ET on Friday, bringing potentially life-threatening flooding, storm surges and winds. Hundreds of miles of coastline, stretching from Georgia to North Carolina, was under a hurricane warning.
The extent of the 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, though the death toll remained uncertain.
Four people were confirmed dead in Florida. They included two residents of hard-hit Sanibel Island along Florida's west coast, Sanibel city manager Dana Souza said late Thursday. Three people were reportedly killed in Cuba after the hurricane struck the island on Tuesday.
At an evening news briefing, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis acknowledged 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.
Earlier on Thursday, President Joe Biden warned Ian could prove to be the deadliest hurricane in Florida history, saying preliminary reports suggested a "substantial" loss of life.
More than 2.3 million homes and businesses remained without power on Thursday evening, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.
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 about 90 per cent of all residential properties were vulnerable to storm surge flooding. Parts of northeast South Carolina, near Charleston, could also experience up to 20 centimetres of rain.
WATCH | Ian's path was catastrophic and massive:
Predicted storm surges were not as severe as those issued by the NHC when the storm was approaching Florida. Edisto Beach, S.C., a resort destination about 50 kilometres south of Charleston, was expected to see a one- to two-metre surge.
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