Hurricane Ian tracker: Storm batters Florida as two million left without power

Florida has been hit by one of the most powerful storms in US history, with hurricane Ian unleashing 150mph winds, torrential rain and knocking out the power for more than two million people, as some residents were told “the worst is yet to come”.

The Category 4 hurricane barrelled onshore at Cayo Costa just after 3pm local time on Wednesday (8pm BST) and shot towards the city of Fort Myers, where cars were submerged, power lines were downed and roads were turned into rivers.

In nearby Naples, dramatic videos showed entire homes being swept away in catastrophic flooding, as storm surges of up to 18 feet forced water onshore.

Now, the 140-mile wide system is crawling inland towards Orlando at just 9mph, which is seeing towns and cities suffer sustained punishment.

"This is going to be a storm we talk about for many years to come," said National Weather Service director Ken Graham. "It's a historic event."

Gusts of up to 190mph have ripped the roofs of homes and spread debris over a large area. Storm surges of between 12 to 18 feet may be felt across more than 250 miles of coastline and as much as 24 inches of rainfall is expected in the next 48 hours.

"This is going to be a nasty nasty day, two days," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said.

On Wednesday night, Tampa, home to 400,000 people, was braced for impact as its mayor Jane Castor said: “The worst is yet to come.”

Sheriff Bull Prummell of Charlotte County, just north of Fort Myers, announced a curfew between 9pm and 6am on Wednesday night "for life-saving purposes", saying violators may face prosecution.

Emergency services have fielded dozens of calls, but in some areas the conditions were still too treacherous to go out and respond. There have not yet been reports of casualties.

More than 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders, but by law no one could be forced to flee. The governor said the state has 30,000 linemen, urban search and rescue teams, and 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and elsewhere ready to help once the weather clears.

President Joe Biden promised Floridians: “We'll be there every step of the way,” as the federal government sent 300 ambulances with medical teams to the west coast of the state.

Hours after landfall, top sustained winds had dropped to 115 mph, making it a Category three hurricane. Still, storm surges as high as 6 feet were expected on the opposite side of the state, in northeast Florida.

Ian's strength at landfall tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane when measured by wind speed to strike the US. Among the other storms was Hurricane Charley, which hit nearly the same spot on Florida's coast in August 2004, killing 10 people and inflicting $14 billion in damage.

Since Tuesday, airlines have cancelled more than 5,000 flights because of the hurricane. Key airports in Florida, including Orlando will be shut until at least Friday.

Walt Disney closed its Orlando theme parks on Wednesday, and they will remain shut on Thursday.

Before Ian hit shore in Florida, it passed over Cuba, where the entire power grid was knocked out, leaving 11 million people in the dark.

Ian could already have had deadly consequences off the coast as US Border Patrol said 23 migrants were missing after their boat sank. Four Cubans who survived swam to shore in the Florida Keys.

The governors of Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have all preemptively declared states of emergency. Forecasters predicted Ian will turn toward those states as a tropical storm, likely dumping more flooding rains into the weekend, after crossing Florida.