In Florida two million people are without power, and there has been widespread flooding, after Hurricane Ian made landfall as a category 4 storm.
Emergency service workers have been forced to take shelter from the storm, and as darkness fell the scale of the damage remained unclear. Residential areas in Fort Myers Beach and several other coastal cities were almost completely submerged, with buildings damaged and trees and power lines brought down.
In coastal Florida, a local sheriff's office reported that it was getting many calls from people trapped in flooded homes. Millions of Florida residents remain directly in the path of the storm, which was expected to remain a powerful hurricane with gusts well above 100mph. The storm is forecast to track northeast across Florida, and is predicted to be bearing down on Georgia by 2pm Friday.Prior to the storms arrival, the counterclockwise spin of the hurricane pulled water away from the coastline, resulting in extraordinary low tides for a brief period.
Intensive care staff had to evacuate the sickest patients, some on ventilators, to other floors. The hospital has four floors, but patients were forced into just two because of the damage. Bodine said incoming storm injuries could make things worse. “The ambulances may be coming soon and we don’t know where to put them in the hospital at this point,” she said. “Because we’re doubled and tripled up.”