Key West’s fallen trees and floodwaters, power outages and impassable roads were put into perspective Wednesday afternoon, as Hurricane Ian unleashed its full fury on Florida’s west coast as a behemoth Category 4 storm.
As of 2 p.m. Wednesday, ian’s landfall was “imminent,” The Weather Channel reported. Sustained winds had reached 155 mph and Ian’s devastating eyewall was closing in on areas such as Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Cape Coral, Englewood, Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor.
“This sure doesn’t feel so bad, considering what’s about to happen up on the mainland,” one Key West woman said on Wednesday morning while her husband helped their neighbors remove a fallen tree that was blocking their street.
The Lower and Middle Keys were still dealing with storm surge flooding on Wednesday, even after some people were forced on Tuesday night to leave their homes in low-lying areas when the rising waters reached their front door.
As cleanup efforts commenced in Key West Wednesday morning and Keys Energy Services crews began restoring power, one man checking the waves at Higgs Beach summed up what a lot of residents were thinking, “We dodged a bullet, thank God. Things could have been unimaginably worse if that thing hadn’t stayed west of us.”
