Currently — September 30th, 2022

What you need to know, currently.

Hurricane Ian knocked out electricity for 2.67 million in Florida, flooding homes and businesses across the state, after making landfall as one of the strongest storms to ever impact the United States.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the Category 4 hurricane as a “500-year flood event.”

As it moved out of Florida, the storm caused massive damage — even central cities like Orlando saw unprecedented flooding. Ian is shaping up to possibly be one of the costliest storms in Florida's history.

The storm was downgraded to a tropical storm as it left Florida’s east coast, however, Ian has since been re-upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it crossed the Atlantic and headed toward Georgia and South Carolina.

Dan Allers, a council member in Fort Myers Beach, described the state of his community post-storm as “total devastation” in one CNN article.

He told journalists he estimates nearly 90 percent of the island is gone, including homes and long-standing businesses.

A third landfall is now expected near Charleston, South Carolina on Friday afternoon, where the national weather service warns of “life threatening storm surges.” Ian will bring heavy rain through the mid-Atlantic region into the weekend.

Ian underwent rapid intensification before making landfall in Florida, – a phenomenon where a storm's wind speeds increase by around 35 MPH in a 24-hour period. Human-induced climate change has made rapid intensification significantly more common over the past few years for two reasons:  — warming oceans and excess water in the atmosphere.

According to a rapid analysis by researchers at Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, human-induced climate change also increased Ian's extreme rain rates by over 10 percent.

-Abbie Veitch

What you can do, currently.

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