Watch: Hurricane Ian strikes Florida | USA Today

Hurricane Ian strengthened into an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm Wednesday and roared to the brink of Category 5 status, its maximum sustained winds blasting at 155 mph as the west coast of Florida braced for landfall Wednesday afternoon.

RELATED: Hurricane Ian nears Florida, DeSantis declares state of emergency

AccuWeather forecasters predicted landfall just northwest of Fort Myers, between Don Pedro Island and Boca Grande, around 4 p.m. It will slam much of the state with life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic winds and flooding, the National Hurricane Center said. At 7 a.m., the center of Ian was located 65 miles west-southwest of Naples.

"We are now forecasting a catastrophic storm surge of 12 to 16 feet from Englewood to Bonita Beach," the hurricane center advisory warned.

Almost 90,000 homes and businesses in South Florida already were dark early Wednesday, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. Power outages can be expected statewide, Florida Power & Light warned.

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23 comments

    1. Soon Desantis will be sending plane loads of migrants to Florida to fill in the labor shortage gap when it comes time to rebuild..

    1. Thank God the Feds rescued all those classified documents before they blew away in this hurricane or Trump used them as placemats for Russian guests.

  1. We got some serious wind here in NW FL Panhandle near Alabama. 20 mph with gusts. Ominous clouds moving in off the Gulf.
    That’s 585 mi from ground zero Ian right now. Scary. 🥺

    1. I’m sitting outside in Ormond Beach right now (north of Daytona) and it’s light rain and light wind. But I’m bracing myself for tomorrow.

  2. Praying for everyone affected by Hurricane Ian 🙏
    I plan to look into ways I can donate something for these people.🙂
    God bless you all and please kindly pray for them all.😇
    Ariel ☘️

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