Hurricane Ian plowed into Florida’s Gulf Coast with catastrophic force on Wednesday, unleashing howling winds, torrential rains and a treacherous surge of ocean surf that made it one of the most powerful U.S.
storms in recent years. Ian made landfall at 3:05 p.m. EDT (1905 GMT) near Cayo Costa, a barrier island just west of Fort Myers, as a Category 4 hurricane, with sustained winds of up to 150 miles per hour (241 km per hour), the U.S.
National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported. The storm’s wind speeds put it just shy of a Category 5 designation on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the most severe classification for storms with maximum sustained winds of at least 157 mph (252 km/h).
About 90 minutes later, the NHC reported Ian had moved ashore the Florida mainland just south of the harborside town of Punta Gorda, with slightly diminished sustained winds topping out at 145 mph. Read more: Hurricane Ian: Cuba remains in the dark after storm knocks out power grid Governor Ron DeSantis said Ian had generated life-threatening storm surges – waves of wind-driven seawater flooding along the coast – of up to 12 feet (3.7 meters) in some places.