A life threatening hurricane in Florida: Hurricane Ian

It has not been so long since the last hurricane hit South Korea, and now Florida is facing a fierce catastrophic tropical storm called Ian with speeds over 225km/h. It is one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US mainland.

Category 4 hurricane

On Wednesday morning hurricane Ian emerged off the coast of Florida. This hurricane is considered as category 4 over the scale. We also have mentioned hurricane scales in one of the former blogs. The Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS) classifies hurricanes—which in the Western Hemisphere are tropical cyclones that exceed the intensities of tropical depressions and tropical storms—into five categories distinguished by the intensities of their sustained winds.The highest classification in the scale, Category 5, consists of storms with sustained winds of at least 157 mph. You can imagine how fierce Hurricane Ian is with category 4. Tropical storm winds are expected to spread across northeastern Florida but it is expected to weaken soon after today.

The storm can be tracked on https://weather.com/hurricane/ian-2022

Hashtags on social media

There are lots of hashtags about Hurricane Ian on social media. People share their situations, observations and thoughts on Twitter. Many broadcast via their smartphones. Even if we are not exposed to the hurricane, we can understand their feelings.

Storm surge

Storm surge is the greatest threat to life and property from the hurricane along the coast. Extreme rains triggered flooding in the central parts of Florida. Cars and even firetrucks are flooded. People are left without home and food in some parts of the city. They are battling the wind. Aircrafts are overturned by the tornado. Traffic lights have fallen. Trees are downed by the heavy winds and fierce rains. Evacuations orders for vulnerable areas have been issued by the officials in Florida. Many people are left homeless and need shelter in those areas. A curfew has been imposed on residents to save them from the storm.

Power outages

According to the Power.Outage.us more than two million people were without power in Florida on Wednesday. Power outages may have spanned days and even weeks. After every disaster there is a power outage unfortunately. And in 21.century everything depends on power. Without power there is almost nothing to do, warming, communication, light, even water.

We must be prepared for this kind of natural disaster. We are seeing similar scenarios all over the world regardless of the country. Earlier in the month it was South Korea, now it is Florida and who knows who is next…