As Hurricane Ian made landfall on Wednesday near Fort Myers, its broad powers reached across the state and continued to lash South Florida with bands of intense weather that are expected continue through Thursday.
The storm had major impact on the east coast of Florida, flooding streets in Key West, tossing migrants into the sea, causing king tides to rise nearly a foot higher than predicted in Fort Lauderdale, and spawning at least two tornadoes in Broward County on Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said.
The tornadoes followed similar paths over Weston, Sunrise, Davie, Cooper City, Hollywood and Pembroke Pines.
At Kings Point west of Delray Beach, a tornado touchdown left two hospitalized and another 35 people displaced, said Capt. Tom Reyes, a spokesperson for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
Across the canal from King’s Point, Lesley and Jerry Silverman were at their neighbors’ house in Floral Lakes, playing cards.
“It was a good thing to do on a lousy night,” Lesley Silverman said. “Then we heard this noise, this really horrible noise.” She described it as thunder growing louder and louder, with debris hitting windows.
When the roar subsided, they looked outside. A car fender lay on the grass. They met their daughter, Emilee, back at their own house, where fire rescue crews worked to cut trees so residents could get into their houses. Across the canal, they could see damaged homes.
“You can see inside the pantry of one of the apartments over there,” said Lesley Silverman.
In the aftermath Wednesday afternoon, King’s Point residents covered shattered car windows with tarps and boarding over the holes in their homes. Some homes no longer had doors or windows, and one was impaled by a tree.
Other residents carried suitcases as they left to stay with friends or relatives. Maria Esturiljo followed her son, Tony, down the road. Neither had ever seen a tornado before. “Hurricane yes, tornado, no,” Esturiljo said. Behind them, the tornado had twisted the red car she drove into a piece of scrap metal.
Two residents remained in the hospital Wednesday afternoon and more than 30 spent the night in the neighborhood Clubhouse. Most were then moved to the South County Civic Center down the road. Some trickled out Wednesday afternoon, picked up by friends or family, but about half remained with nowhere to go. They slept in cots in the auditorium. “I don’t have a nightgown,” said Harriet Finkel, lifting the white handbag that contained most of her remaining belongings. “I don’t have underwear.”
At North Perry Airport, 30 personal aircraft and hangars were damaged in a tornado in Pembroke Pines, said Arlene Satchell, spokesperson for the airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
The storm sank a boat carrying some 27 migrants off Key West. Four migrants where able to swim ashore to Stock Island, just east of Key West, at 7:30 Wednesday morning, and informed Border Patrol officials that there were 23 others stranded at sea.
Three of the missing people were rescued 2 miles south of Boca Chica, near Key West. They were hospitalized and treated for exhaustion and dehydration, U.S. Coast Guard Southeast officials said in a Tweet shortly before 3:30 p.m.
Petty Officer Nicole Groll, a spokesperson for Coast Guard District Seven, said officials are still searching for the 20 others, but that “the chances of them still being alive are not good.”
An evolving storm
The National Hurricane Center has added hurricane warnings to the central east coast of Florida, as far south as Sebastian Inlet, as the storm now looks like it will remain more intact as it crosses the state.
National Weather Service meteorologist Anthony Reynes said that tropical bands can produce wind gusts up to 40 or 50 mph, and take down trees.
Hollywood resident Gary Adams heard a boom outside his house Tuesday night, and the sound of something rolling across his roof. “Then I heard clink-clanking around on the patio out there as the chairs were falling around. I looked at my wife and said, ‘what the hell was that?’ … I came through the garage door and looked out the window into the street and said ‘That tree does not belong there.'”
The entirety of the region can expect tropical-storm conditions, and flooding from rain is possible across the region through Thursday morning.
“The storm is moving very slowly, so conditions are not going to get better any time soon,” Reynes said. “It’s going to take all day and all night. We can expect rain bands on and off and some of them can have wind gust up to tropical-storm force. The showers that move slowly can become a potential for localize flooding in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties.”
The high winds are most likely to last through Thursday afternoon in Palm Beach County and from Wednesday morning to before dawn Thursday in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
The storm’s cone of possibility — the area over which the storm’s center could track — passes just north of Lake Okeechobee. Western sections of Palm Beach County have an 80% or higher chance of tropical-storm-force winds on Wednesday, while eastern sections, as well as Broward County have a 60% to 80% chance.
On Tuesday, Commissioner Melissa McKinlay, who represents western Palm Beach County, including the Glades area, said a dike rehab project around Lake Okeechobee has resulted in major improvements in flood resilience.
“We’ve been in touch with the Army Corps of Engineers. They assure us that the dike is in the best position it’s been in decades,” she said, adding that the lake is about 21/2 feet below where it normally is at this time of year, “so there’s plenty of storage space available in the lake.”
Florida Power and Light’s website indicates that there were some 16,540 customers without power in Broward County Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., with an additional 11,980 customers without power in Palm Beach County.
Tri-county area schools were closed on Wednesday, and all three counties will close schools on Thursday as well. Florida Atlantic University also canceled all classes, including those online, Wednesday and Thursday.
Palm Beach County expects 39 mph sustained winds, heavy rains and tornadic activity to continue overnight and well into Thursday, the county reported.
In addition to Palm Beach County schools remaining closed, all county operations will be as well, and all Palm Tran services will be suspended on Thursday.
Solid Waste Authority facilities will be open, however, and waste collection will occur in unincorporated Palm Beach County on Thursday.
Travel
Many Floridians evacuating the west coast have headed east.
At a news conference on Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke about evacuations and suggested evacuees consider heading to South Florida. “Go south across Alligator Alley,” he said. “South Florida is doing better.”
Matt Denson, general manager of the boutique 19-room Snooze Hotel on North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard said that the hotel has seen a significant uptick in bookings because of this storm.
“It’s very strange,” he said. “I’ve been through several storms over the decades, and I’ve never had this much fluctuation in reservations. I’ve had 15 cancellations between today and yesterday and 14 pickups. That’s amazing pickup. I’ve got one oceanfront suite left to sell.”
This is normally the slowest time of year for Fort Lauderdale hotels, he said, but “this is the most occupied I’ve been, considering there are 50 mph winds right outside my door.”
Southwest Airlines, a major air carrier serving all three South Florida airports, suspended its flights to the entire tri-county region Wednesday after curtailing service to other Florida airports in the path of Hurricane Ian.
The suspensions came even though Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Miami International Airport and Palm Beach International Airport remained open to commercial flying.
The note said suspensions apply through Thursday for service to Tampa, Sarasota, Fort Myers and Orlando, whose airports have also closed. International flights to Havana, Cuba, are also suspended with no time listed for resumption.
Staff writers Shira Moolten, David Lyons, Angie DiMichele and Amy Beth Bennett contributed to this report.
