September 27, 2022 Florida braces for Hurricane Ian

Energy companies from across the United States are sending droves of workers to assist in Hurricane Ian restoration efforts.

ComEd: At the request of Georgia Power and Tampa Electric, the Chicago-based energy company is sending more than 250 employees —100 ComEd employees and 150 contractors, plus support staff — to assist in restoration efforts following expected outages, it told CNN affiliate WBBM. Crews began leaving Tuesday morning.

Duke energy: The company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is also sending nearly 10,000 workers to help in safe Florida locations, including lineworkers, tree professionals, damage assessment and support personnel. Crews coming from Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio will be strategically placed in areas that will be most impacted and will be prepared to "respond to outages once it is safe to do so," a spokesperson told CNN.

Emergency Disaster Services: The Lexington-based disaster recovery company is sending 1,000 workers to Georgia and Florida to assist utility companies after Hurricane Ian's landfall before pivoting to assist FEMA with their needs. The company has proprietary "state-of-the-art mobile sleeper systems" with laundry, restrooms, dining halls, kitchens, and mobile office trailers to support "utility partners as they work to restore power," a spokesperson told CNN. 

Hurricane Ian made landfall Tuesday morning in western Cuba, where more than 38,000 people had evacuated to get out of harm's way, CNN previously reported. 

CNN meteorologists predict that at least 8 million people are under a hurricane warning in western and central Florida, meaning they are subject to hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or greater.

A storm surge warning along the west coast of Florida was expanded to include the area from Suwanee River to Anclote River, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center. 

A storm surge warning was also issued for the US east coast from Marineland, Florida, to the mouth of St. Mary's River, including the St. Johns River, and the Dry Tortugas.

Here is a list of all the warnings currently in effect:

A hurricane warning:

A storm surge warning:

A tropical storm warning:

A storm surge watch:

A hurricane watch:

A tropical storm watch:

The center of Hurricane Ian is positioned in the far southeastern Gulf of Mexico as of 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday, according to the latest update by the National Hurricane Center.

The forecast says Ian is about 285 miles from Sarasota, Florida, and about 110 miles from the Dry Tortugas, a national park made up of seven small islands.

The hurricane center said it will release hourly forecasts as long as the eye of the storm "is easily trackable by land-based radar."

While Tampa Mayor Jane Castor on Tuesday morning said the forecast for Hurricane Ian’s impact on the city “hasn’t changed a great deal,” the slow-moving storm is expected to bring a “devastating amount of water” to the Tampa Bay area.

Castor also said she received a call from President Biden, who said he also had Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell in his office.

“He just wanted to ensure that we had all the resources that we needed and clearly wishing us the best,” Castor said.

Castor said a thunderstorm on Monday evening already saturated the ground and caused street closures.

“We are doing all that we can right now … to mitigate pumping water out of our stormwater ponds, letting water over the dam, doing all that we can to make sure that that water has a clear path, somewhere to go,” the mayor said.

“It's going to be in our rivers, it's going to be in our streams, it's going to be in our canals, it's going to be in our stormwater drains and ditches,” Castor added. 

A curfew is expected to be implemented, Castor said.

“We are prepared to secure these neighborhoods as best we can so that anyone that does not belong in these neighborhoods is not coming back in post evacuation,” Tampa Police Chief Mary O’Connor added.

Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Barbara Tripp said crews are currently helping to evacuate the nursing homes that are in the evacuation area, assisting with evacuating those patients to facilities on higher grounds. At least 41 patients from a nursing home in south Tampa are being relocated to central Tampa, Tripp said.

City officials have also been speaking to CEOs of hospitals throughout the city.

O’Connor said a storm barrier has been put up around Tampa General Hospital.

“So this is going to be the test right here, but I've talked to them and they aren't evacuating anyone at this point,” O’Connor said. “But they have systems in place that individuals will be protected. And they have plenty of resources, generators working, and they're comfortable that they can protect their patients at Tampa General.”

Floridians should be prepared to lose power once the storm hits, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in an update on Tuesday.

DeSantis also said the duration of power loss could last more than just a few days depending on how Hurricane Ian makes landfall.

Loss of power "may be a matter of days. It may be more than just a few days. It really depends on the intensity of the storm, and it depends on how much structural damage is done to the underlying infrastructure that powers our state," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, energy companies announced that thousands of workers from across the US will be sent to safe locations in Florida and also Georgia to help with power restoration efforts.

Cuba’s western province of Pinar del Rio has lost power, according to Cuban state television on Tuesday.

Hurricane Ian hit Cuba’s western province, an area noted for its tobacco farms. State media posted photos of downed fences and destruction at the Alejandro Robaina Tobacco Plantation, one of Cuba’s most famous tobacco farms.

With Hurricane Ian barreling toward Florida, coastal residents are scrambling to secure their homes.

On Tuesday morning in the Tampa area, long lines of cars waited for hours to get free sandbags at distribution sites.

In flood-prone regions, sandbags are used around doorways as barriers to prevent flood water from entering homes. But depending on the height of Ian’s storm surge, officials have warned sandbags might not provide enough protection.

Nearly 7 million people residing along the coast between Fort Myers and Clearwater, including all of Tampa Bay, are under a storm surge warning.

As of 11 a.m. ET, a storm surge of five to eight feet was forecast in and around Tampa Bay. Even the low range of storm surge forecast would still be the highest water levels ever recorded for the area.

The city of Tampa is limiting each vehicle to 10 filled sandbags. Tampa distribution sites will close at 2 p.m. Tuesday, the city said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis encouraged residents to prepare for historic flooding and storm surge on Tuesday, encouraging Floridians under evacuation orders to heed those warnings.

“It is now a major hurricane,” DeSantis said. “Understand the impacts are going to be far, far broader than just where the eye of the storm happens to make landfall. In some areas, there will be catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge.”

DeSantis said the most recent forecast had landfall south of Tampa Bay, in the Sarasota area, threatening severe flooding and an estimated 5 to 10 feet of storm surge. 

Guthrie continued that residents of Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties should continue to heed warnings and not return to their homes.

About 2.5 million Floridians are currently under some kind of evacuation order, according to Florida officials. 

“Mother nature is a very fearsome adversary. So please heed those warnings. You do not need to evacuate to another state. You don't need to go hundreds of miles away. There are shelters that are open and all of these counties at this point,” said DeSantis

According to the governor, Florida has activated 5,000 National Guard members with an additional 2,000 members from other states. More than 28,000 people are staged for power restorations across the state of Florida. 

Twenty-six school districts announced closures as of Tuesday morning. DeSantis said he expected more closures to be announced as the track of the storm becomes clearer. 

NASA has rolled the massive Artemis I mega moon rocket back into its hangar, called the Vehicle Assembly Building, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to protect it from Hurricane Ian.

The move, which concluded at 9:15 a.m. ET Tuesday, delays the third launch attempt for the Artemis I mission, which is slated to send an uncrewed capsule around the moon, for at least a few weeks.

The agency will host a news conference today at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the rollback decision. Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, will provide a big picture look at all of the hurricane preparations taking place at the complex.

“After the storm has passed, teams will conduct inspections to determine impacts at the center and establish a forward plan for the next launch attempt, including replacing the core stage flight termination system batteries and retesting the system to ensure it can terminate the flight if necessary for public safety in the event of an emergency during launch,” according to an update in the Artemis blog.

The setback would likely push NASA’s next try into November, though late October potentially could still be an option for the highly anticipated launch.

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