Residents of Florida’s Gulf Coast were on Tuesday asked to pack up and vacate their homes for higher ground as hurricane Ian approached.
Hurricane Ian earlier on Tuesday swamped fishing villages after slamming into Cuba leaving the entire country in a total blackout.
Ian will land south of Tampa according to the National Hurricane Center.
The Tampa area in USA is the most vulnerable when it comes to storms. The area is a home for retirees, vacationers, hotels, and miles of sandy beaches.
“It’s been around 100 years since Tampa had a direct hit. They’ve just been lucky for a long time,” said Erik Salna, associate director of the International Hurricane Research Center.
Tampa is a home to over three million people, has low elevation, rising sea levels and is densely populated which increases the risk of a catastrophic tidal surge.
The Mayor of Tampa town has urged more people to relocate assigning police officers to go door to door as Ian is currently a category three storm expected to hit Florida in harder as it increases its speed.
Schools in Florida have been closed, commercial airlines cancelled and major airports such as the St Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport ceased its operations.
Tampa Electric warned customers to be prepared for “extended outages.” The company will institute a “targeted interruption” of service to a part of downtown Tampa on the western edge of the city.
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