Hurricane Ian slammed into the coast of southwest Florida as a monster Category 4 storm on Wednesday with powerful winds and torrential rains threatening "catastrophic" damage and flooding.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the eye of the "extremely dangerous" hurricane made landfall just after 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) on the barrier island of Cayo Costa, west of the city of Fort Myers.
Dramatic television footage from the coastal city of Naples showed floodwaters surging into beachfront homes, submerging roads and sweeping away vehicles.
Some neighbourhoods in Fort Myers, which has a population of more than 80,000, resembled lakes.
Florida's Govenor Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that there were more than 1.1 million reported power outages in the state and that the figure is expected to grow.
Ian is set to impact several million people across Florida and in the southeastern states of Georgia and South Carolina, and may have caused multiple casualties offshore.
The US Border Patrol said 20 migrants were missing after their boat sank. Four Cubans who survived swam to shore in the Florida Keys and three were rescued at sea by the coast guard.
"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."
DeSantis said the state was going to experience a "nasty, nasty day, two days."
- 'Life-threatening' -
Some 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with several dozen shelters set up, and voluntary evacuation recommended in others.
For those who decided to ride out the storm, authorities stressed it was too late to flee and residents should hunker down and stay indoors.
Airports in Tampa and Orlando stopped all commercial flights and cruise ship companies delayed departures or canceled voyages.
"This is a life-threatening situation," the NHC warned.
The storm was set to move across central Florida before emerging in the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday.
- 'Nothing is left here' -
"Desolation and destruction. These are terrifying hours. Nothing is left here," a 70-year-old resident of the western city of Pinar del Rio was quoted as saying in a social media post by his journalist son, Lazaro Manuel Alonso.
At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, Cuban state media reported.
In the United States, the Pentagon said 3,200 national guardsmen were called up in Florida, with another 1,800 on the way.
DeSantis said state and federal responders were assigning thousands of personnel to address the storm response.
"There will be thousands of Floridians who will need help rebuilding," he said.
As climate change warms the ocean's surface, the number of powerful tropical storms, or cyclones, with stronger winds and more precipitation is likely to increase.
The total number of cyclones, however, may not.
"There remains a consensus that there will be fewer storms, but that the strongest will get stronger," Lackmann told AFP.
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© Agence France-Presse
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