{"id":7920,"date":"2022-09-27T05:32:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T09:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7920"},"modified":"2022-09-27T05:32:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T09:32:04","slug":"hurricane-ian-lashes-cuba-aims-at-florida-as-possible-cat-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7920","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Ian Lashes Cuba, Aims at Florida as Possible Cat 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
Workers remove a boat from the water in the bay of Havana, Cuba, Monday, Sept. 26, 2022. Hurricane Ian was growing stronger as it approached the western tip of Cuba on a track to hit the west coast of Florida as a major hurricane as early as Wednesday. (AP Photo\/Milexsy Duran)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A strengthening Hurricane Ian\u2019s rain and winds lashed Cuba\u2019s western tip, where authorities have evacuated 50,000 people, as it roared on a path that could see it hit Florida\u2019s west coast as a Category 4 hurricane<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Officials in Cuba\u2019s Pinar del Rio province set up 55 shelters, rushed in emergency personnel and took steps to protect crops in Cuba\u2019s main tobacco-growing region ahead of Ian\u2019s expected landfall early Tuesday as a major hurricane. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the island\u2019s west coast could see as much as 14 feet (4.3 meters) of storm surge.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuba is expecting extreme hurricane-force winds, also life-threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall,\u201d hurricane center senior specialist Daniel Brown told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

After passing over Cuba, Ian was forecast to strengthen further over warm Gulf of Mexico waters<\/a> before reaching Florida as early as Wednesday as a Category 4 storm with top winds of 140 mph (225 km\/h).<\/p>\n

As of Monday, Tampa and St. Petersburg appeared to be the among the most likely targets for their first direct hit by a major hurricane<\/a> since 1921.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease treat this storm seriously. It\u2019s the real deal. This is not a drill,\u201d Hillsborough County Emergency Management Director Timothy Dudley said Monday at a news conference on storm preparations in Tampa.<\/p>\n

In Havana on Monday, fishermen were taking their boats out of the water along the famous Malecon seaside boulevard, and city workers were unclogging storm drains ahead of the expected rain.<\/p>\n

Havana resident Adyz Ladron said the potential for rising water from the storm worries him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very scared because my house gets completely flooded, with water up to here,\u201d he said, pointing to his chest.<\/p>\n

In Havana\u2019s El Fanguito, a poor neighborhood near the Almendares River, residents were packing up what they could to leave their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we escape this one because it would be the end of us. We already have so little,\u201d health worker Abel Rodrigues said.<\/p>\n

As of 2 a.m. Tuesday, Ian was moving northwest at 13 mph (20 km\/h), about 85 miles (136 kilometers) east of the western tip of Cuba, with top sustained winds increasing to 110 mph (177 km\/h).<\/p>\n

The National Hurricane Center said \u201csignificant wind and storm surge impacts\u201d were expected Tuesday morning in western Cuba.<\/p>\n

Ian won\u2019t linger over Cuba but will slow down over the Gulf of Mexico, growing wider and stronger, \u201cwhich will have the potential to produce significant wind and storm surge impacts along the west coast of Florida,\u201d the hurricane center said.<\/p>\n

A surge of up to 10 feet (3 meters) of ocean water and 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain was predicted across the Tampa Bay area, with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) inches in isolated areas. That\u2019s enough water to inundate coastal communities.<\/p>\n

As many as 300,000 people may be evacuated from low-lying areas in Hillsborough County alone, county administrator Bonnie Wise said. Some of those evacuations were beginning Monday afternoon in the most vulnerable areas, with schools and other locations opening as shelters.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe must do everything we can to protect our residents. Time is of the essence,\u201d Wise said.<\/p>\n

Floridians lined up for hours in Tampa to collect bags of sand and cleared store shelves of bottled water. Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a statewide emergency and warned that Ian could lash large areas of the state, knocking out power and interrupting fuel supplies as it swirls northward off the state\u2019s Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a significant storm that may end up being a Category 4 hurricane,\u201d DeSantis said at a news conference. \u201cThat\u2019s going to cause a huge amount of storm surge. You\u2019re going to have flood events. You\u2019re going to have a lot of different impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeSantis said the state has suspended tolls around the Tampa Bay area and mobilized 5,000 Florida state national guard troops, with another 2,000 on standby in neighboring states.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden also declared an emergency<\/a>, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief and provide assistance to protect lives and property. The president postponed a scheduled Tuesday trip to Florida because of the storm.<\/p>\n

Playing it safe, NASA planned to slowly roll its moon rocket<\/a> from the launch pad to its Kennedy Space Center hangar, adding weeks of delay to the test flight.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced Monday night that the football team was relocating football operations<\/a> to the Miami area in preparation for next weekend\u2019s game against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Buccaneers said the team will leave Tampa on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Flash flooding was predicted for much of the Florida peninsula, and heavy rainfall was possible for the southeast United States later this week. With tropical storm force winds extending 115 miles (185 kilometers) from Ian\u2019s center, watches covered the Florida Keys to Lake Okeechobee.<\/p>\n

– Cristiana Mesquita and Curt Anderson, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A strengthening Hurricane Ian\u2019s rain and winds lashed Cuba\u2019s western tip, where authorities have evacuated 50,000 people, as it roared on a path that could see it hit Florida\u2019s west coast as a Category 4 hurricane. Officials in Cuba\u2019s Pinar del Rio province set up 55 shelters, rushed in emergency personnel and took steps to protect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/27397512ab5349489f87d8eedd28740a\/1000.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Hurricane Ian Lashes Cuba, Aims at Florida as Possible Cat 4","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7921,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions\/7921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}