Hurricane Ian slammed into western Cuba as a major hurricane on Tuesday, leaving one million people without power, before churning on a collision course with Florida over warm Gulf seas with the potential to intensify into a catastrophic Category 4 storm.
Ian made landfall in the Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, where officials put up 55 shelters, evacuated 50,000 people, and took precautions to safeguard crops in the country’s primary tobacco-growing region. The National Hurricane Center of the United States reported that Cuba saw “severe wind and storm surge impacts” when the hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph made landfall (205 kmh).
The 27th of September, 2022, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, a classic automobile passes by wreckage left by Hurricane Ian. Alexandre Meneghini / REUTERS
As the heart of the storm advanced towards the Gulf, pictures of devastation appeared throughout Cuba’s renowned tobacco region. The owner of the prestigious Finca Robaina cigar company uploaded images of damaged greenhouses, greenhouse roofs, and toppled carts on social media.
Hirochi Robaina, grandson of the operation’s founder, wrote, “It was apocalyptic, a real catastrophe.”
People pass through a fallen power transformer in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on September 27, 2022, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Alexandre Meneghini / REUTERS
Local government station TelePinar tweeted images of collapsing ceilings and uprooted trees at the city’s major hospital in Pinar del Rio. There were no recorded deaths.
El director del Hospital Abel Santamaría Cuadrado de #PinardelRío, Orestss Moya Álvarez informó que como consecuencia del paso del #HuracánIan se perciben serias afectaciones estructurales, in la impermeabilización de las cubiertas y en otros espacios del center. #PinardelRo image: https://twitter.com/utHum8YMn
— TelePinar (@TelePinar) September 27, 2022
Wednesday was predicted to be the day that Hurricane Ian makes landfall along the west coast of the Florida peninsula. As of Tuesday evening, the storm was still churning in the Gulf of Mexico, where the warm temperatures enabled it to quickly intensify.
According to the National Hurricane Center, around 8 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Hurricane Ian was located approximately 180 miles south-southwest of Punta Gorda, Florida, and 20 miles south-southwest of the Dry Tortugas. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph and was moving north-northeast at 10 mph, making it a Category 3 hurricane.