Millions in Florida urged to evacuate as Hurricane Ian nears

Residents of Florida's Gulf Coast on Tuesday boarded up their homes, packed up their vehicles and headed for higher ground as Hurricane Ian drew near, threatening to bring a deadly storm surge and more than a foot of rain to some areas.

Churning through the Caribbean on a path toward Florida, Hurricane Ian slammed into Cuba, forcing mass evacuations, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and swamping fishing villages.

More than 2.5 million Floridians were under evacuation orders or warnings with the sprawling storm on track to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday evening somewhere along the Gulf Coast.

A Category 3 storm carries maximum sustained winds of up to 129 miles per hour (208 km per hour). The latest 5 pm EDT (2100 GMT) hurricane advisory put Ian's top winds near 120 mph.

Ian was most likely to come ashore south of Tampa near Sarasota, the National Hurricane Center said. That region is home to miles of sandy beaches and scores of resort hotels - is a favourite with retirees and vacationers alike.

"I know I should be scared of this one, but I'm too busy to be scared. I just know we have to go," said John O'Leary, a jazz pianist from Tampa, said as he and his wife loaded food, water and family photos into their car before heading to his mother's house in Palm Harbour, 25 miles (40 km) to the west.

O'Leary, 36, was one of the thousands of motorists to hit the road as they fled low-lying areas in hopes of avoiding a potentially life-threatening storm surge that, according to forecasters, could reach 12 feet (3.7 meters) in the Sarasota area.

"There's still uncertainty with where that exact landfall will be, but just understand, the impacts are going to be far, far broader than just where the eye of the storm happens to make landfall," Governor Ron DeSantis said.

DeSantis warned of the potential for devastating Hurricane Harvey-like flooding that struck the Houston area in 2017, the result of a slow-moving storm piling up high water.

Parts of central Florida could see as much of 2 feet (0.6 meter) of rain from Ian, according to the National Weather Service.

Florida's director of emergency management, Kevin Guthrie, urged residents in evacuation zones to move to safety.

"The time to evacuate is now. Get on the road," he said.

To ease evacuations, authorities suspended toll collections along major highways in Central Florida, the Tampa Bay area and the interstate stretch across the Everglades known as Alligator Alley.

Some residents, such as Vanessa Vazquez, 50, a software engineer in St. Petersburg, said they planned to ride out the storm at home despite evacuation warnings.

"I'm staying put," Vazquez said. "I have four cats and I don't want to stress them out. And we have a strong house."

If Ian strikes Tampa, it would be the first hurricane to make landfall in the area since the Tarpon Springs storm in 1921.

It also may prove to be one of the costliest as the latest simulations show the estimated cost from storm damage and other impacts ranging from $38 billion to more than $60 billion, Enki Research said on Tuesday.

CLOSINGS, POWER OUTAGES

Nearly 60 Florida school districts were either closed Tuesday or planned to be closed by Wednesday, DeSantis said. Officials planned to use many of the schools as shelters during the storm and its aftermath.

Commercial airlines cancelled more than 2,000 U.S. flights due to the storm.

The St Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport - located on a vulnerable peninsula east of Tampa Bay ceased operations at 1 pm on Tuesday and the Tampa International Airport will shut down at 5 pm. The Orlando International Airport has no plans to close but officials say they are monitoring the storm.

Tampa Electric warned customers to be prepared for "extended outages." The company will institute a "targeted interruption" of service to a part of downtown Tampa on the western edge of the city. That area has already been evacuated.

Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, opened 45 evacuation shelters, where more than 600 people and their pets have checked in so, Emergency Management Director Tim Dudley said. DeSantis said nearly 100 shelters had opened statewide.

The Walt Disney Co announced it was closing its Florida theme and water parks on Wednesday and Thursday while the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers relocated to Miami, where they will practice this week ahead of their game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.