Sharjah24 – AFP: Hurricane Ian plunged much of coastal southwest Florida into darkness Wednesday, as the monster storm brought "catastrophic" storm surges, wind and flooding that had officials readying a huge emergency response.
The US Border Patrol said 20 migrants were missing after their boat sank, with four Cubans swimming to shore in the Florida Keys islands and three rescued at sea by the coast guard.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the eye of the "extremely dangerous" hurricane made landfall just after 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) on the barrier island of Cayo Costa, west of the city of Fort Myers.
Dramatic television footage from the coastal city of Naples showed floodwaters surging into beachfront homes, submerging roads and sweeping away vehicles.
Some neighborhoods in Fort Myers, which has a population of more than 80,000, resembled lakes.
The NHC said Ian was packing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour when it landed.
It later weakened slightly to a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 105 miles per hour, while still battering Florida with "catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding," the NHC said at around 9:00 pm local time (0100 GMT).
Almost two million customers were without electricity in Florida Wednesday evening out of a total of more than 11 million, with southwestern areas of the state the hardest hit, according to the PowerOutage.us tracking website.
Ian is set to affect several million people across Florida and in the southeastern states of Georgia and South Carolina.
As hurricane conditions spread, forecasters warned of a once-in-a-generation calamity.
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