Trees were either knocked down or standing and stripped bare. In Punta Gorda, CNN’s Randi Kaye took shelter in a parking garage as she described how the streets were devoid of people and cars. and is in place until further notice, while Charlotte County’s begins at 9 p.m. Lee and Charlotte counties have also implemented curfews. Thursday, the county government tweeted Wednesday. “You can’t imagine the calls,” the post read.Ī mandatory curfew was put in place for all of Collier County beginning at 10 p.m. To make matters worse, the Lee County’s 911 system is down and calls are be rerouted to Collier County Sheriff, according to the post. Possibly until the water recedes,” a post on the county’s Facebook page read. Some are reporting water coming into their house but not life threatening. “Some are reporting life threatening medical emergencies in deep water. We are still collecting numbers from other areas. “Water is everywhere,” according to a Sheriff’s Office statement late Wednesday, which added that “our East Naples deputies did 30 rescue missions today. Spell could not specify how many calls have come in at this time nor comment on injuries. “There’s still plenty of onshore flow along the coast keeping water levels elevated, so while the peak surge values will decrease here relative to previous value, I still expect waters to be up for awhile and the need to maintain the storm surge warnings,” Fritz said. However, “water levels are quite high in those areas still and so it will take some time for the water to recede,” Cody Fritz, storm surge specialist at the National Hurricane Center, warned. The storm surge along the west coast of Florida has peaked and is beginning to recede as the storm moves inland, according to the hurricane center. Irma made second landfall at Marco Island just south of Naples, in the state's southwest, as a category three storm with 185kph winds before being downgraded to category two a short time later.Ī storm surge of more than 2 metres in 90 minutes was reported from Naples, while forecasts predicted waters could rise to 4.5 metres above ground level.Hurricane Ian continued to batter the Florida peninsula with a catastrophic trifecta of high winds, heavy rain and historic storm surge Wednesday night, even as it weakened to a Category 1 storm, the National Hurricane Center said.Īmid widespread flooding, property damage, power outages and water-rescue calls, and with the slow-moving hurricane inching inland hours after making landfall along Florida’s vulnerable western coastline, officials across the state continued to issue dire warnings to residents to stay inside. Irma headed for the state's west coast with 195kph winds and storm surges - water driven ashore by the winds - of up to 4.6 metres were forecast, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.Īs it happened: Look back on our live blog to track how Hurricane Irma made landfall. The storm, one of the most powerful ever recorded in the Atlantic, made landfall on Sunday as a category four storm with 210kph winds in the Florida Keys off the state's southern tip at 9:10am local time (11:10pm AEST) - hours later it was downgraded to a powerful category three storm. Tampa Bay is particularly vulnerable because the bay acts as a funnel for storm surges, forcing water into narrow channels with nowhere else to go.Īll of southern Florida felt the storm's effects, with at least one man killed, a woman forced to deliver her own baby and trees and apartment towers swaying in high winds.
The eye of the storm, now downgraded to category one, is moving towards the highly populated Tampa Bay area, where residents are fearing the worst.
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