Hurricane Ian latest: People trapped and 2.25 million without power as monster storm swamps Florida

ICYMI: Florida residents are taking steps to protect collections worth millions as the storm makes landfall in the state.

ICYMI: As the massive Hurricane Ian began to pound the Florida coast, Noaa’s satellite kept the storm dead in its sights.

Jon Kelvey has the story.

As if launching a gigantic Moon rocket for the first time isn’t hard enough on its own, Nasa has faced multiple fuel leaks, engine troubles, and now a building fire and category 4 hurricane in its attempt to get the Artemis I mission launched before the end of the year.

As Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS) Moon rocket and Orion spacecraft waiting out Hurricane Ian inside the Vehicle Assembly Building — essentially a giant rocket hangar — at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a launch attempt that had been scheduled for Tuesday could now slip into the middle of October, or even into early November.

Nasa’s Artemis I mission will be the first test flight of the SLS rocket, which will send the solar powered Orion spacecraft on more than month-long journey to, around, and back from the Moon in an uncrewed shake down of the rocket and spacecraft system that Nasa homes will take humans back to the surface of the Moon in 2025.

Read more in this report from Jon Kelvey:

Water drained from Tampa Bay on Wednesday as Hurricane Ian approached Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The storm eventually made landfall near Fort Myers, about 100 miles to the south.

A number of people posted photos on social media of themselves and others walking out onto the silty and sandy bay floor, despite warnings from local officials. Tampa Bay has a normal average deputy of about 12 feet (4 metres).

The phenomenon of the bay emptying also happened in 2017, when experts said Hurricane Irma caused a negative surge. Because a tropical storm’s winds blow counterclockwise, the winds at the northern edge of Hurricane Ian were blowing from east to west with so much force that they pushed the water from the bay into the Gulf of Mexico.

Water eventually refilled the bay.

ICYMI: In the video, posted to the department’s social media, a group of rescuers helped a woman through deep water in a city street and into the safety of a partially flooded building.

“I’m going to take you there with me as long as I can swim there. This water is cold,” said a firefighter who was videoing the rescue.

The grateful resident can be heard thanking the firefighters as the video ended.

As of 1.57am ET, around 2,250,000 customers are currently without power in Florida because of Hurricane Ian, according to poweroutage.us.

Hurricane Ian left a path of destruction in southwest Florida, trapping people in flooded homes, damaging the roof of a hospital intensive care unit and knocking out power to two million people before aiming for the Atlantic Coast.

One of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States barreled across the Florida peninsula overnight Wednesday, threatening catastrophic flooding inland, the National Hurricane Center warned.

In Port Charlotte, along Florida’s Gulf Coast, the storm surge flooded a lower-level emergency room in a hospital even as fierce winds ripped away part of the roof from its intensive care unit, according to a doctor who works there.

Water gushed down onto the ICU, forcing staff to evacuate the hospital’s sickest patients — some of whom were on ventilators — to other floors, said Dr. Birgit Bodine of HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital. Staff members used towels and plastic bins to try to mop up the sodden mess.

Lara Trump has sparked anger and concern after posting a video of her five-year-old son driving his toy car outside in the midst of heavy rain from Hurricane Ian.

The 39-year-old TV producer, who lives in Florida with her husband Eric Trump, shared the video to her Instagram on Wednesday of the couple’s son Eric Luke Trump. Trump and her spouse also share three-year-old daughter Carolina Dorothy Trump.

In the video, Trump’s son, who goes by the name Luke, could be seen driving his toy car in the middle of the street as rain from the Category four storm poured down. As he steered the vehicle, he held one hand over his eyes in an effort to shield his face from the rain.

My colleague Amber Raiken reports: