Florida officials say ‘time is now’ to evacuate for coastal residents in Ian’s path

Residents in Southwest Florida, the Tampa Bay region and along the Gulf Coast who are under evacuation orders need to leave now to escape the threat of Hurricane Ian, Florida officials continue to urge

“I implore, I urge everyone that is in an evacuation zone that has been asked to evacuate the time is now. You must evacuate now,” Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie told reporters at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee.

“There will come a point in time where local public safety officials will not be able to respond to your cry for help and you may be left to fend for yourself,” he added.

More than 2.5 million Floridians are under either mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders. Areas under evacuation orders can be found on the FDEM website.

The eye of Hurricane Ian is now north of Cuba, about 250 miles south of Sarasota and moving north at 10 mph, according to the 5 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center. The latest forecast has the storm making landfall at the Charlotte County-Sarasota County border as a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 120 mph or more, a shift south from projections earlier in the day.

Ian is then projected to weaken, but sit over the state for more than 48 hours, dumping rain and still carrying heavy winds as it “meanders,” as Gov. Ron DeSantis said, through the state. That means residents in Central Florida and Northeast Florida need to be prepared for Ian.

“This is going to be a lot of impacts and they will be felt far and wide throughout the state of Florida,” DeSantis said Tuesday evening. “It’s also going to produce a massive amount of rain, it’s also going to produce major flooding.”

DeSantis also cautioned that because Ian is likely to move slowly, that will delay the time for power restoration crews to get into damaged areas and return power.

“We’ve got the manpower ready. They’re going to work as hard as they can, but I don’t think anyone should go into this thinking that somehow they may lose power for like one night and then it’s all just going to snap back on,” DeSantis said. “You’re talking about really, really significant impacts.”