An early-morning advisory predicted the tropical storm that was once Hurricane Ian will head into the Atlantic Ocean, and is expected to impact Georgia and South Carolina.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Flooding rains persist across central and northern Florida.
Officials with the agency said at around 9 p.m. Wednesday, winds decreased to 110 mph. By 11 p.m., Ian lost more wind power to 90 mph. As of the 5 a.m. Thursday advisory, wind speeds are down to 65 mph.
By Wednesday night, the peninsula experienced catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding.
In downtown Ft. Myers, near Ian's landfall, streets turned into rivers. Some cars moved due to high waters, floating through the debris left from the hurricane's damaging winds.
In Palmetto, south of Tampa, strong winds clipped branches from trees that bent to Ian's wrath.
Extreme winds in Sarasota county took down utility poles. As many as two million people had no power at some point during the storm, according to a power outage resource website.
Due to the storm's trajectory, states of emergency have been declared in South Carolina, North Carolina, Horry County and North Myrtle Beach.
Henry McMaster said the impact that Hurricane Ian will have on the Palmetto State has been hard to predict.
Meteorologists in South Carolina explain that because the storm got stronger than expected and is moving forward faster, it will have less time over land.
That means it will be a little stronger when it emerges over the water east of Florida Thursday evening.
It is still unlikely to strengthen over water because of high wind shear and dry air but an initially stronger and faster Ian will mean slightly higher impacts from wind Friday.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. WPDE's Joel Vazquez-Juarbe contributed to this report.