AFP UK

Tom Park begins cleaning up damage from Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda, Florida

Hurricane Ian left a trail of devastation across Florida on Thursday with whole neighborhoods reduced to shattered ruins and millions left without power as US President Joe Biden warned of a high death toll.

The storm, one of the most powerful ever to hit the United States, churned towards South Carolina after hammering the southern coastal state, where many residents were awaiting rescue in flooded homes.

“This could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida history,” Biden said after a briefing at FEMA emergency management headquarters in Washington.

He said the numbers “are still unclear, but we’re hearing reports of what may be substantial loss of life.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the destruction in the southwest of the state as a “500-year flood event.”

Aerial photos of Fort Myers, where the hurricane made landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday, showed swathes of destruction in residential areas.

Roads and bridges were washed out by storm surge and trees toppled by howling winds of up to 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour).

At least six deaths have been confirmed by county officials but the toll is expected to rise significantly as rescuers fan out.

A Coast Guard official said helicopter crews were plucking people from the rooftops of homes inundated by floodwaters.

The US Border Patrol said a boat carrying migrants sank at sea during the hurricane on Wednesday, leaving 20 missing. Four Cubans swam to shore in the Florida Keys and the coast guard rescued three others.

Ian was downgraded to a tropical storm overnight but the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said it was expected to regain hurricane strength during the day and issued a hurricane warning for the entire coast of South Carolina.

– ‘Really devastated’ –

After an initial look at the breathtaking destruction, DeSantis, the governor, said Fort Myers and adjacent Cape Coral were “inundated and really devastated” by the storm.

Ian also menaced the city of Orlando and the nearby Disney theme parks, which were shuttered.

The hurricane’s savagery was most evident along Florida’s southwest coast, much of which was plunged into darkness after the storm wiped out power.

Tracking website poweroutage.us said 2.66 million homes and businesses were without electricity in the so-called Sunshine State.

Joe Ketcham, 70, of Punta Gorda, told AFP of the “relentless” banging of metal and his fears about what was to come as the hurricane battered his home.

“But I have the almighty savior who I prayed to. This is all material,” Ketcham said of the damage around him. “We’re alive. We’re fine.”

Lisamarie Pierro said that the storm “was long and intense” and left a “mess.”

“But this is nothing,” she said. “My house is still standing.”

Biden declared a “major disaster” in Florida, a move that frees up federal funding for storm relief.

“We’re continuing to take swift action to help the families of Florida,” he tweeted. “I want the people of Florida to know that we will be here at every step of the way.”

– Water rising –

DeSantis meanwhile warned that broad regions of Florida remained under threat.

“The amount of water that’s been rising, and will continue today even as the storm is passing, is basically a 500-year flood event,” he told a press conference.

Two barrier islands near Fort Myers, Pine Island and Sanibel Island, popular with vacationers, were essentially cut off when the storm damaged causeways to the mainland.

Mandatory evacuation orders had been issued in many areas of Florida ahead of the storm, with several dozen shelters set up.

Airports stopped all commercial flights, and cruise ship companies delayed or canceled voyages.

Before pummeling Florida, Ian had plunged all of Cuba into darkness Tuesday after downing the island’s power network.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, state media in the country of more than 11 million reported.

Human activity has caused life-threatening climate change resulting in more severe weather events across the globe.

Flared natural gas is burned off at Apache Corporations operations at the Deadwood natural gas plant in the Permian Basin in 2015

Flaring — burning off unwanted natural gas from oil and gas wells — releases five times more of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere over the United States than previously assumed, according to a study published Thursday.

The result is a far greater impact on climate change, with the warming potential between the stated and actual effectiveness of flaring across the United States equivalent to putting 2.9 million more cars onto the road each year, the paper in Science said.

A team led by Genevieve Plant at the University of Michigan carried out airborne sampling over the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale in Texas, as well as the Bakken Formation that straddles North Dakota and Montana. These together account for 80 percent of US flaring.

“We employed a small airplane equipped with highly sensitive sensors to measure the concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide directly downwind of flare stacks,” Plant told AFP.

“Over the course of our airborne survey, we sample around 300 distinct flare stacks throughout the highest-flaring regions in the US.”

The fossil fuel industry and US government work on the assumption that flares remain lit and destroy methane, the predominant component of natural gas, with 98 percent efficiency.

But according to the study, a combination of unlit flares and some flares that were burning highly inefficiently meant that on average, flares destroyed just 91.1 percent of methane.

That implies methane emissions from flaring in the United States, which ranks among the top five nations for flaring activity, are five times as high as currently officially reported. 

– Health impacts –

Digging deeper into the numbers, the team found that most flares actually operate at 98 percent efficiency.

But a modest number of malfunctioning flares operate at efficiency as low as 60 percent, and 3-5 percent of flares are unlit — directly venting unburned gas into the atmosphere.

Flaring is an inherently wasteful activity — as the natural gas associated with oil extraction could be used for productive purposes. 

The amount of gas that is currently flared each year – about 144 billion cubic meters – could power the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank.

Gas is flared for various reasons. Sometimes it is done for safety, since the extraction process deals with high pressures that can cause explosions. 

At other times it can be economic — when, for example, the target is oil and the associated gas isn’t considered worth bringing to market.

“From anecdotal conversations with industry experts, one potential reason flares may be unlit is due to high wind events and then the flares remain unlit until noticed by the operator if re-igniting systems are either not installed or not working,” said Plant.

The team suggested a number of solutions, key among them: reduce the total volume of flaring activity, increasing flare efficiency, and reducing the number of unlit flares.

Technology solutions can also be deployed, such as re-injecting gas back into oil reservoirs, which is common practice in Alaska.

“Other proposed alternatives to flaring include using the gas to power equipment on-site, as well as storing it, either compressed or liquefied form, for later energy use,” said Plant.

In a related commentary, authors Riley Duren and Deborah Gordon said the findings had important health implications for the half million people who live within five kilometers (three miles) of the three basins studied.

“Unlit and partially combusted flares have the potential to expose front-line communities to a cocktail of co-pollutants that present risks of acute and/or chronic health impacts,” they said.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years it enters the atmosphere — though carbon dioxide has greater staying power. 

Because of this, more than 120 countries have signed a Global Methane Pledge to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

Guarani Indigenous people and environmental activists protest in Brazil in the wake of the killing of rights defender Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Amazon

More than three-quarters of the world’s murders of environmental activists took place in Latin America last year, an annual review by watchdog Global Witness showed on Thursday.

The group said a total of 200 land and environmental defenders — whom it named individually — were killed in 2021, down from a record 227 in 2020.

These killings came “in the context of a wider range of threats against defenders who are being targeted by government, business and other non-state actors with violence, intimidation, smear campaigns and criminalization,” the London-based group said.

“Over three-quarters of the attacks recorded took place in Latin America,” said Global Witness, which has issued such reports since 2012.

It maintains a database of the killings based on reviews of “reliable sources of publicly available online information,” the report said.

Mexico had the highest recorded number of killings at 54 in 2021, Global Witness found. That figure was up from 30 the previous year, and more than 40 percent of the victims were Indigenous people, it said.

Global Witness reported that heavy Latin American tolls also occurred in Colombia, with 33 killings, Brazil where there were 26 and Nicaragua, which had 15.

While in most cases the killings could not be connected to a specific industry, the report identified 27 tied to mining and extractive industries.

– ‘We feel abandoned’ –

Among the Mexican victims identified by Global Witness was Jose Santos Isaac Chavez , an Indigenous leader and lawyer in Ayotitlan in Jalisco state who opposed the local Pena Colorada mine.

Chavez was murdered in April last year.

“He was found dead in his car, which had been driven off a cliff. His body showed evidence of torture,” Global Witness said.

No one has been brought to justice for this and other killings linked to opponents of the mine, it added.

“The mines destroy and pollute the environment,” said Ayotitlan community activist Jose Santos Rosales, whose 17-year-old son Rogelio Rosales Ramos was murdered in 2020.

“I ask the authorities for justice and to punish those responsible,” Rosales, whose brother also disappeared in 1993, told AFP by telephone.

“We feel abandoned to our fate” because criminals, when faced with any criticism about the mine, “send someone to murder,” he added.

Global Witness said that “impunity remains rife” in Mexico, with more than 94 percent of such crimes not reported and only 0.9 percent resolved.

It called for urgent actions to hold companies and governments accountable for actions against land and environmental defenders, “who are often standing on the front line of the climate crisis.”

Among the measures, it said governments should require companies to carry out due diligence on human rights and environmental risks, and must ensure an enforceable legal environment that protects land defenders. 

Dead fish are seen along the banks of the Oder River in Schwedt, Germany on August 12, 2022, after a massive fish kill was discovered in the river in the country's east

Polish authorities on Thursday said toxic algae was to blame for mass fish deaths in the Oder river, ruling out industrial pollution as the cause.

The conclusions presented at a press conference by scientists and government officials come from a preliminary report to be released Friday, weeks after the environmental disaster unfolded. 

The authors of the report said nearly 250 tonnes of dead fish were recovered from the Oder river that runs through Poland and Germany. 

Various factors “led us to conclude that the fish deaths were probably caused by the toxic effects of an algal bloom”, said Agnieszka Kolada from the Polish Institute of Environmental Protection.

The micro-algae at issue — known as Prymnesium parvum, or golden alga — are prevalent in estuaries and normally grow in brackish water, mainly near the sea, and “had until now never been detected in Poland”, she told reporters.

She added that the water quality of the Oder has been poor “for years” and was only made worse this summer by high temperatures and very low water levels, which may have fostered the algal bloom.

Some observers, including media outlets and environmental organisations, suspected that a chemical spill was at fault for the disaster, but the Polish side rejected that theory.

“The fish deaths were neither caused by heavy metals, nor pesticides, nor petroleum substances,” according to a presentation on the report. 

According to the analyses to date, “none of the inspected business entities had discharged pollutants above the regulatory limits” into the river, said Andrzej Szweda-Lewandowski, the government’s head of environmental protection.

The amount of industrial discharge had been “the same as in previous years”, he told reporters.

Fishermen in Poland first started reporting dead fish in the Oder in late July and they began washing up in Germany a few days later.

Poland’s government only reacted on August 12, sparking widespread criticism from both local Polish authorities and Germany. 

The true measure of DART's success will be exactly how much it diverted the asteroid's trajectory

The James Webb and Hubble telescopes on Thursday revealed their first images of a spacecraft deliberately smashing into an asteroid, as astronomers indicated that the impact looks to have been much greater than expected.

The world’s telescopes turned their gaze towards the space rock Dimorphos earlier this week for a historic test of Earth’s ability to defend itself against a potential life-threatening asteroid in the future.

Astronomers rejoiced as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor slammed into its pyramid-sized, rugby ball-shaped target 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth on Monday night.

Images taken by Earth-bound telescopes showed a vast cloud of dust expanding out of Dimorphos — and its big brother Didymos which it orbits — after the spaceship hit.

While those images showed matter spraying out over thousands of kilometres, the James Webb and Hubble images “zoom in much closer”, said Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast involved in observations with the ATLAS project.

James Webb and Hubble can offer a view “within just a few kilometres of the asteroids and you can really clearly see how the material is flying out from that explosive impact by DART”, Fitzsimmons told AFP.

“It really is quite spectacular,” he said.

An image taken by James Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) four hours after impact shows “plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the centre of where the impact took place”, according to a joint statement from the European Space Agency, James Webb and Hubble.

Hubble images from 22 minutes, five hours and eight hours after impact show the expanding spray of matter from where DART hit.

– ‘Worried there was nothing left’ –

Ian Carnelli of the European Space Agency said that the “really impressive” Webb and Hubble images were remarkably similar to those taken by the toaster-sized satellite LICIACube, which was just 50 kilometres from the asteroid after separating from the DART spacecraft a few weeks ago.

The images depict an impact that looks “a lot bigger than we expected,” said Carnelli, the manager of the ESA’s Hera mission which intends to inspect the damage in four years.

“I was really worried there was nothing left of Dimorphos” at first, Carnelli told AFP.

The Hera mission, which is scheduled to launch in October 2024 and arrive at the asteroid in 2026, had expected to survey a crater around 10 metres (33 feet) in diameter. 

It now looks like it will be far bigger, Carnelli said, “if there is a crater at all, maybe a piece of Dimorphos was just chunked off.”

The true measure of DART’s success will be exactly how much it diverted the asteroid’s trajectory, so the world can start preparing to defend itself against bigger asteroids that could head our way in the future.

It will likely take Earth-bound telescopes and radars at least a week for a first estimate of how much the asteroid’s orbit has been altered, and three or four weeks before there is a precise measurement, Carnelli said.

– ‘Huge implications’ – 

“I am expecting a much bigger deflection than we had planned,” he said.

That would have “huge implications in planetary defence because it means that this technique could be used for much larger asteroids”, Carnelli added.

“Until today, we thought that the only deflection technique would be to send a nuclear device.”

Fitzsimmons said that even if no material had been “flung off” Dimorphos, DART still would still have slightly affected its orbit. 

“But the more material and the faster it’s moving, the more of a deflection there will have been,” he said.

The observations from James Webb and Hubble will help reveal how much — and how quickly — matter sprayed from the asteroid, as well as the nature of its surface.

The asteroid impact marked the first time the two space telescopes observed the same celestial body.

Since launching in December and releasing its first images in July, James Webb has taken the title of most powerful space telescope from Hubble.

Fitzsimmons said the images were “a beautiful demonstration of the extra science you can get by using more than one telescope simultaneously”.

Boats damaged by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida

Hurricane Ian inundated cities, turned out the lights on millions of residents and left migrants from an overturned boat missing Thursday as Florida assessed damage from what the state governor described as a “500-year flood event.”

Officials launched a major emergency response after one of the most intense US storms in years, with helicopter crews plucking survivors from barrier islands slammed by a deluge that saw storm surges crash through beachfront towns and horizontal rain pound communities for hours.

After an initial look at the breathtaking destruction, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the coastal city of Fort Myers and adjacent Cape Coral were “really inundated and really devastated” by the storm.

He said there were “two unconfirmed fatalities” that were likely linked to the hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded Ian to a tropical storm Thursday, but said it was causing “catastrophic flooding” and forecast further “life-threatening” floods, storm surge and high winds in central and eastern Florida as well as Georgia and South Carolina.

The US Border Patrol said a boat carrying migrants sank at sea during the hurricane, leaving 20 missing. Four Cubans swam to shore in the Florida Keys islands and the coast guard rescued three others.

Ian also menaced the city of Orlando and the nearby Disney theme parks, which were shuttered.

– ‘We’re alive’ –

Ian’s savagery was most evident along Florida’s west coast, including Punta Gorda, which was plunged into darkness after the storm wiped out power.

Howling winds toppled trees, pulled chunks out of roofs, and turned debris into dangerous projectiles whipping through town.

Punta Gorda urvivor Joe Ketcham, 70, told AFP of the “relentless” banging of metal and his fears about what was to come as the hurricane battered his home.

“But I have the almighty savior who I prayed to. This is all material,” the 70-year-old said of the damage around him. “We’re alive. We’re fine.”

Lisamarie Pierro said that the storm “was long and intense… the mess it left. But this is nothing. My house is still standing.”

President Joe Biden declared a “major disaster” in Florida, a move that frees up federal funding for storm relief.

DeSantis meanwhile warned that broad swathes of Florida remained under threat.

“The amount of water that’s been rising, and will continue today even as the storm is passing, is basically a 500-year flood event,” he told a press conference.

Two barrier islands near Fort Myers, Pine Island and Sanibel Island, popular with vacationers, were essentially cut off when the storm damaged causeways to the mainland.

“The coast guard has been performing rescue missions on the barrier islands consistently since the wee hours of the morning,” DeSantis added.

– Evacuations, power outages –

Ian made landfall as an extremely powerful hurricane just after 3:00 pm Wednesday on the barrier island of Cayo Costa, west of Fort Myers.

Dramatic television footage showed floodwaters surging into beachfront homes, submerging roads and sweeping away vehicles.

The NHC said Ian’s maximum sustained winds reached 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour when it landed as a Category 4 hurricane — just shy of the maximum Category 5.

As a tropical storm, wind dropped to a maximum 65 miles per hour on Thursday.

Some 2.6 million of Florida’s 11 million homes and businesses were without power Thursday, according to the PowerOutage tracking website.

Mandatory evacuation orders had been issued in many areas, with several dozen shelters set up. Airports stopped all commercial flights, and cruise ship companies delayed or canceled voyages.

The storm was set to move off the east-central coast of Florida later Thursday and emerge into the Atlantic before blowing through Georgia and the Carolinas to the north.

“Some slight re-intensification is forecast, and Ian could be near hurricane strength when it approaches the coast of South Carolina on Friday,” according to the NHC.

Ian had plunged all of Cuba into darkness Tuesday, after battering the country’s west and downing the island’s power network.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, state media in the country of more than 11 million reported.

In the United States, some 5,000 National Guard personnel were mobilized in Florida as DeSantis vowed an all-out rescue and recovery effort. 

Last year, four hurricanes were among 20 separate weather incidents that cost the United States $1 billion or more, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Human activity has caused life-threatening climate change resulting in more severe weather events across the globe.

The true measure of DART's success will be exactly how much it diverted the asteroid's trajectory

The James Webb and Hubble telescopes on Thursday revealed their initial images of a spacecraft deliberately crashing into an asteroid, marking the first time the two most powerful space telescopes have observed the same celestial object.

The world’s telescopes turned their gaze towards the space rock Dimorphos earlier this week for a historic test of Earth’s ability to defend itself against a potential future life-threatening asteroid.

Astronomers rejoiced as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor slammed into its pyramid-sized target 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth on Monday night.

Images taken by Earth-bound telescopes showed a vast cloud of dust expanding out of Dimorphos — and its big brother Didymos which it orbits — after the spacecraft hit.

While those images showed matter spraying out over thousands of kilometres, the James Webb and Hubble images “zoom in much closer”, said Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast involved in observations with the ATLAS project.

James Webb and Hubble can see “within just a few kilometres of the asteroids and you can really clearly see how the material is flying out from that explosive impact by DART”, Fitzsimmons told AFP.

“It really is quite spectacular,” he said.

Observations from the space telescopes will help reveal how much — and how quickly — matter sprayed from the asteroid, as well as the nature of its surface.

– ‘A beautiful demonstration’ – 

An image taken by James Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) four hours after impact shows “plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the centre of where the impact took place”, according to a joint statement from the European Space Agency, James Webb and Hubble.

James Webb’s images were shown in red because the telescope operates primarily in the infrared spectrum, which allows it to peer further into the universe than ever before.

The images from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 were blue because it shows the impact on visible light.

Hubble images from 22 minutes, five hours and eight hours after impact show the expanding spray of matter from where DART hit on the asteroid’s left.

The true measure of DART’s success will be exactly how much it diverted the asteroid’s trajectory, so the world can start preparing to defend itself against bigger asteroids that could head our way in the future. 

However, it will take Earth-bound telescopes and radar days or even weeks to work out exactly where Dimorphos is, compared to where it would have been.

Measurements using that data will probably start next week, Fitzsimmons said. 

“The problem we have at the moment is that there’s still a lot of dust and debris around the asteroids,” he said. 

“How quickly astronomers can make that measurement will depend on exactly how efficient DART was,” he added. The more the asteroid has been knocked off course, the easier it will be to measure.

Since launching in December and releasing its first images in July, James Webb has taken the title of most powerful space telescope from Hubble.

With astronomers lined up for precious time to peer into the universe, the DART test is the first time both telescopes have observed the same event.

Fitzsimmons said the images were “a beautiful demonstration of the extra science you can get by using more than one telescope simultaneously”.

Older elephants and young calves are the first to succumb to prolonged drought, experts say

An “extraordinary and resilient” African elephant who defied all odds to give birth despite being shot five times by poachers has died in Kenya’s drought-ravaged north, conservationists said on Thursday.

“Monsoon” was euthanised by veterinarians after collapsing several times in poor health in Samburu, an arid expanse that like most of northern Kenya is suffering the driest conditions in 40 years.

The great matriarch was believed to be in her mid-60s, at the upper reaches of life expectancy for an elephant in the wild.

“It’s estimated her ill health was brought on by old age and exacerbated by the drought,” read a statement from Save the Elephants, a Kenya-based wildlife conservation group.

A mother of seven calves, Monsoon survived being shot five times during a rampant poaching crisis about a decade ago that sent Africa’s wild elephant populations into freefall.

During the wholesale massacre of elephants for ivory, Monsoon lost two of her own calves to poachers, and scientists believed she would never give birth again after the trauma of being shot.

But in 2018 she delivered a calf in Samburu, nine years after her ordeal.

It was not the first time she had defied the experts.

In 2006 she led her family to safety up one of the biggest hills in Samburu, shortly after Save the Elephants published a study asserting that elephants tended to avoid steep terrain.

Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, an unprecedented climatic event that has pushed millions across the Horn of Africa into extreme hunger.

Older elephants and young calves are the first to succumb to prolonged drought, experts say.

“Sadly the outlook for rain later this year is grim and there are fears the drought may stretch well into 2023, which is a major worry,” said Save the Elephants founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton.

“We are working with our partners, local communities and government in Kenya to address the long-term problems the drought will bring to wildlife and communities alike and doing our best to prevent more elephants like Monsoon from dying.”

A man livestreams the impact of Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda, Florida

Hurricane Ian flooded cities, turned out the lights on millions, and left migrants from an overturned boat missing on Thursday as Florida assessed damage from one of the most intense US storms in years.

Officials readied a major emergency response to the deluge that laid waste to coastal Florida as the hurricane roared through beachfront towns and horizontal rain pounded communities for hours.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded Ian to a tropical storm, but said it was causing “catastrophic flooding” and forecast further “life-threatening” floods, storm surge and high winds in Florida as well as Georgia and South Carolina.

The US Border Patrol said that a boat carrying migrants sank at sea during the hurricane, leaving 20 missing. Four Cubans swam to shore in the Florida Keys islands and the coast guard rescued three others.

Ian also menaced the city of Orlando and the nearby Disney theme parks, which were shuttered Wednesday and Thursday.

President Joe Biden declared a “major disaster” in Florida, a move that frees up federal funding for storm relief.

As dawn broke across the state’s west coast, residents got their first glimpse at the damage. 

Ian made landfall as an extremely powerful hurricane just after 3:00 pm Wednesday 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.

– ‘A lot of destruction’ –

Pete DiMara, chief of Naples Fire-Rescue, told CNN that a surge of four to six feet (up to two metres) swept through his station, leaving crews unable to respond to emergencies.

Many cell towers are down and “the surge has certainly caused a lot of destruction in the area,” DiMara said, urging residents to stay home until his crews can reach them.

To the north, some neighborhoods in Fort Myers, a city of 83,000, resembled lakes.

The NHC said Ian’s maximum sustained winds reached 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour when it landed as a Category 4 hurricane — just shy of the maximum Category 5.

As a tropical storm, they had dropped to a maximum 65 miles per hour.

Some 2.6 million of Florida’s 11 million electricity customers were without power on Thursday, according to the PowerOutage tracking website.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis said the state should brace for a “nasty, nasty day, two days.”

The town of Punta Gorda was in near-total darkness overnight after the storm wiped out power, save for the few buildings with generators.

Howling winds toppled trees, pulled chunks out of roofs, and turned debris into dangerous projectiles whipping through town.

Mandatory evacuation orders had been issued for about 2.5 million people in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with several dozen shelters set up.

Airports stopped all commercial flights, and cruise ship companies delayed departures or canceled voyages.

The storm was set to move off the east-central coast of Florida later Thursday and emerge into the Atlantic before blowing through Georgia and the Carolinas to the north.

“Some slight re-intensification is forecast, and Ian could be near hurricane strength when it approaches the coast of South Carolina on Friday,” according to the NHC.

– National Guard called up –

Ian had plunged all of Cuba into darkness Tuesday, after battering the country’s west as a Category 3 storm and downing the island’s power network.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, state media in the country of more than 11 million reported.

By Wednesday power had been restored for some residents of Havana and another 11 provinces, but not in Cuba’s three worst-affected provinces.

In the United States, some 5,000 National Guard personnel were mobilized in Florida as DeSantis vowed an all-out rescue and recovery effort. 

“There will be thousands of Floridians who will need help rebuilding,” the governor said.

Last year, four hurricanes were among 20 separate weather incidents that cost the United States $1 billion or more, the second-most billion-dollar disasters recorded in a calendar year behind 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Human activity has caused life-threatening climate change resulting in more severe weather events across the globe.

A man livestreams the impact of Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda, Florida

Hurricane Ian left much of coastal southwest Florida in darkness early Thursday, bringing “catastrophic” flooding that left officials readying a huge emergency response to a storm of rare intensity.

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’s maximum sustained winds reached 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour when it landed. 

It later weakened to a Category 1 hurricane with winds dropping to a maximum 75 miles per hour, battering Florida with storm surges, damaging winds and “life-threatening catastrophic” flooding, the NHC said at around 2:00 am local time Wednesday (0600 GMT).

More than two million customers were without electricity in Florida early Thursday, 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.

“This is going to be a storm we talk about for many years to come,” said National Weather Service director Ken Graham. “It’s a historic event.”

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis said the state was going to experience a “nasty, nasty day, two days.”

– ‘Life-threatening’ –

The town of Punta Gorda, north of Fort Myers, was in near-total darkness after the storm wiped out power, save for the few buildings with generators.

Howling winds ripped branches off trees, pulled chunks out of roofs, and blew the fronds of palm trees horizontal.

About 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with several dozen shelters set up, and voluntary evacuation recommended in others.

For those who decided to ride out the storm, authorities stressed it was too late to flee and residents should hunker down and stay indoors.

Airports in Tampa and Orlando stopped all commercial flights, and cruise ship companies delayed departures or canceled voyages.

With up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain expected to fall on parts of the Sunshine State, and a storm surge that could reach devastating levels of five to eight feet (1.5 to 2.4 meters), authorities warned of dire emergency conditions.

The storm was set to move across central Florida before emerging in the Atlantic Ocean later Thursday.

– Rebuilding work begins –

Ian had plunged all of Cuba into darkness a day earlier, after battering the country’s west as a Category 3 storm and downing the island’s power network.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, Cuban state media reported.

By Wednesday power had been restored for some residents of Havana and another 11 provinces, but not in Cuba’s three worst-affected provinces in the west of the country.

In the United States, the Pentagon said 3,200 national guard personnel were called up in Florida, with another 1,800 on the way.

DeSantis said state and federal responders were assigning thousands of personnel to address the storm response.

“There will be thousands of Floridians who will need help rebuilding,” he said.

As climate change warms the ocean’s surface, the number of powerful tropical storms, or cyclones, with stronger winds and more precipitation are likely to increase.

The total number of cyclones, however, may not.

According to Gary Lackmann, a professor of atmospheric science at North Carolina State University, studies have also detected a potential link between climate change and rapid intensification — when a relatively weak tropical storm surges to a Category 3 hurricane or higher in a 24-hour period, as happened with Ian.

“There remains a consensus that there will be fewer storms, but that the strongest will get stronger,” Lackmann told AFP.