Hurricane Ian: more than 2m without power as Florida hit with ‘catastrophic’ wind and rain

Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US mainland, has battered south-west Florida with high winds, rain and storm surges as it weakened and moved inland.

More than 2m homes and businesses were left without power as the storm swept ashore in south-west Florida on Wednesday afternoon, bringing “catastrophic” 150mph winds and a deadly storm surge of up to 18ft. Hours later, the storm – estimated to be about 140 miles wide – was downgraded from a category 4 to a category 1 storm as it moved slowly north-east, causing major flooding.

The true scale of the damage remained unclear as darkness fell, with power and communications networks down, and emergency services workers forced to take shelter from the worst of the storm.

Residential areas in Fort Myers Beach and several other coastal cities were almost completely submerged, buildings were damaged, and trees and power lines brought down. The utility company Florida Power and Light warned those in Ian’s path to brace for days without power.

In coastal Florida, desperate people posted to Facebook and other social sites, pleading for rescue for themselves or loved ones. A local sheriff’s office reported that it was getting many calls from people trapped in flooded homes.

Millions of Florida residents remain directly in the crosshairs of the storm, which was expected to remain a powerful hurricane with gusts well above 100mph as it continued on a path north-east toward Orlando, and the Atlantic coast on Thursday.

“Pray for people,” the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, told reporters.

“There’s some storms that really leave an indelible impact … this is going to be one of those historic storms and it’s going to shape the communities in south-west Florida and have a profound impact on our state.

“This is going to be a rough stretch. So we just ask people for their thoughts and their prayers. This is a major, major storm.”

The storm surge flooded the lower level emergency room of the HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital in Port Charlotte, while fierce winds tore part of the fourth-floor roof from its intensive care unit, according to Dr Birgit Bodine, who works there.

Intensive care staff were forced to evacuate the hospital’s sickest patients – some of them on ventilators – to other floors. The medium-sized hospital spans four floors, but patients were forced into just two because of the damage.

Bodine said incoming storm injuries could make things worse. “The ambulances may be coming soon and we don’t know where to put them in the hospital at this point,” she said. “Because we’re doubled and tripled up.”

Ian had already been blamed for several deaths and unprecedented flooding in Cuba, which was beginning to restore electricity to regions on Wednesday after a total wipeout of power on the island.

Meanwhile, a search for more than 20 people was under way off the coast of Florida after a boat carrying migrants from Cuba to the US mainland sank. Several passengers were rescued from the waters.

Joe Biden promised the full support of federal resources for search and rescue missions, and then the recovery effort in Florida, which officials warned would be changed forever by the impact of the storm.

“We’ll be there to help you recover, we’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, [and] to help get Florida moving,” the US president said in an address from the White House, adding that his federal emergency declaration means thousands of National Guard troops had been activated and millions of liters of water, food and generators were on their way.

Ian approached Florida after passing over Cuba and the Caribbean sea as a powerful tropical storm, and building strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Torrential flooding and powerful winds were captured in dramatic video posted to social media that showed trees uprooted, lashing rain and submerged cars. A Weather Channel meteorologist who has covered more than 90 storms in his career said that he had experienced nothing like Hurricane Ian in over 30 years.

More than 2.5 million people were under evacuatio