Florida bracing for ‘catastrophic flooding,’ DeSantis says, as 2.5 million get evacuation orders

“Catastrophic flooding” is expected to pummel parts of Florida once Hurricane Ian arrives, Gov. Ron DeSantis warned Tuesday, as 2.5 million people were instructed to evacuate the state.

U.S. officials are bracing for Ian as it struck western Cuba as a major hurricane early Tuesday morning, with forecasts predicting the storm to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday.

“There’s still uncertainty with where that exact landfall will be, but just understand the impacts are going to be far, far broader than just where the eye of the storm happens to make landfall,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday.

“In some areas, there will be catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge,” he said. “If you’re on Florida’s Gulf Coast, from Naples all the way through the Tampa Bay area and some of the counties north of that, that could be something that happens, and will certainly happen in some parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast.”

A dog is walked through floodwater as the tide rise, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, in Key West, Fla., as the first bands of rain associated with Hurricane Ian pass to the west of the island chain. (rob oneal 305 942~1299/)

Ian was a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour on Tuesday, DeSantis said, with the latest models projecting it to make landfall south of Tampa.

DeSantis warned that Floridians should brace for power outages and encouraged them to stay clear of the storm.

Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Bonita Beach are among the areas in Florida that received mandatory evacuation orders from officials.

“When you have five to 10 feet of storm surge, that is not something you want to be a part of,” DeSantis said. “And Mother Nature is a very fearsome adversary.”

More than a million Cubans experienced power outages Tuesday.

Meteorologists expect Ian to intensity even further as it travels over the Gulf of Mexico. It could be a Category 4 hurricane by the time it reaches Florida on Wednesday.

Hurricane Ian expected to be ‘strongest storm’ in a lifetime for Tampa area, meteorologist says

People line up to get sand bags in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Ian in Tampa, Florida on September 27, 2022. (RICARDO ARDUENGO/)

Tampa last experienced a major hurricane in 1921.

“We’ve been brushed by storms and hurricanes over the last 10, 15, 20 years, but nothing [has been] this close and this strong of a storm,” meteorologist Rick Davis of the National Weather Service’s Tampa office told the Daily News on Monday.

“For most people in the Tampa Bay region, this will be the strongest storm that they’ve seen in their lifetime.”

With News Wire Services