After a fury that has engulfed Florida, hurricane Ian is losing strength and has now dropped to category 2 (out of 5), with "weaker" winds: 168 km per hour. 


At the moment it is located about 130 km southeast of Orlando:

the number of people without electricity has meanwhile risen to over 1.8 million.

CNN reports it. 


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Ian cap touches the ground

The wind had reached up to

240 kilometers per hour

yesterday , despite having been widely announced.

There are also 23 missing: they were aboard a boat carrying migrants that sunk off the coast of Florida, just before Hurricane Ian touched land.

Four people on the boat were able to swim ashore and were saved

.

According to the website PowerOutage.us, Lee County, where Fort Myers and Cape Coral are located, is the most affected with 330,000 homes in the dark, 70% of the users. 

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Hurricane Ian in Florida 09/29/22

After having crossed the western zone, that of the islands, the hurricane had entered the Southern State, at an unprecedented speed.

Governor Ron DeSantis urged not to leave home and not to travel.

State of emergency in neighboring states 


The governors of

Virginia

,

Georgia

and

South Carolina

have declared a state of emergency in preparation for the passage of the hurricane.

Thus the appeal of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin: "Ian is a great and powerful storm and current forecasts indicate that it

could impact areas of Virginia late this week and early next week

," he said. Youngkin said.

The sea rises by 4 meters


American TVs have broadcast apocalyptic images: houses destroyed or damaged, trees uprooted, cars submerged by floods, with the sea level rising up to 4 meters.

Some areas are still too dangerous to organize rescue operations.


Florida hospital overwhelmed, patients evacuated


Ian submerged a four-story Florida hospital this morning: the storm flooded the emergency room downstairs, while strong winds ripped off part of the roof of the fourth-floor intensive care unit - a report it to the Associated Press, Dr. Birgit Bodine - forcing staff to evacuate the sickest patients in the hospital to other floors: "Ambulances may arrive soon and we don't know where to put them in the hospital at this point."